CHAPTER VIII 
The Physical History of the Norwegian Fjords 
EXPLANATION TO ACCOMPANY PLATES VII anv VIII 
HE western coast of Norway comes as a necessary part of the physical phenomena discussed 
in this treatise, and may well be regarded as a crowning subject for our consideration owing 
to the exceptional position which the fjords occupy amongst the physical features of Europe. 
These arms of the sea entering from the western coast penetrate for long distances into the very 
heart of the lofty, snow-capped plateau of the Scandinavian promontory ; and while descending to great 
depths below the surface along their central areas, are often bounded by cliffs and walls of rock, the 
summits of which are sometimes decked by snow even during the heat of summer. 
In no other country in Europe have we examples on so grand a scale of profound channels invaded 
by the waters of the ocean and lined by walls of rock, generally precipitous, often vertical like that of 
Romsdal, and rising several thousand feet till culminating in some stupendous “horn” or peak ; or else 
forming the margin of that vast snowfield which covers as with a white sheet the surface of the great 
central tableland. This central snowfield, visible from the sea at a distance of one hundred miles, sends 
down into the adjoining valleys glaciers, such as that known as the Jostedals Glacier, unsurpassed in 
magnitude by any in Europe, which, in the northern end of the peninsula, are almost bathed in 
the waters of the sea itself. Nor can we fail, when coasting along these great waterways, to notice from 
time to time the evidence both of former submersion, in the form of terraces at levels of several hundred 
feet above the present sea-level, and subsequent elevation, which has placed them where they are. 
1. That these arms of the sea were at a former period the channels of glaciers, on a vastly greater scale 
than at present, will be recognised from the polished and striated surfaces of the bare rocks cropping out 
from under the turf along the hillsides.2 On the other hand, the flat surfaces of terraces lining the 
sides of the valleys, especially in protected spots, may constantly be noticed, occasionally affording a 
footing for dwellings and land for cultivation. That these terraces (‘Strandlinien”) are ancient sea- 
beaches or ocean-margins cannot be doubted; and they indicate the extent to which the whole of 
Norway was submerged at a former period ; amounting, according to Professor Reusch, to over 600 feet 
in the Christiania and Trondhjem regions. 
2. Depths of the Fjords below the Surface of the Sea—But the subject which most strongly excites 
our interest is the profound depth to which the fjords descend below the surface of the waters, reaching 
in the case of the Sogne Fjord to nearly 4000 feet (665 fathoms), as shown by the soundings on the 
Admiralty Charts. If these gulfs were, as we are compelled to believe, the channels of former glaciers, 
and filled with ice down to their very floors, and much above the present water-level as shown by the 
glaciated rocks, the thickness of the ice would appear to have reached to not less, probably more, than 
1 Professor Brdgger considers that the late elevation of Norway reached to at least 8530 feet during the epoch of the early glacial ice-sheet ; 
this conclusion being arrived at from the occurrence of a bed of littoral shells at a depth of 2600 métres. 
2 First described by the late Professor James Forbes in his great work Norway and its Glaciers (Edinburgh, 1853). 
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