COAST-LINES MODIFIED BY CLIMATE. 139 



observed^ wliicli are probably notbing else than ancient terminal 

 glacial moraines. 



After the period wbicb preceded the present era, the glaciers of 

 Scandinavia retreated little by little into the interior of the fjords, 

 then ceased to touch the level of the sea, and their lower extremity 

 mounted higher and higher in the open valleys on the sides of the 

 mountains. It was then that the immense geological labour of fill- 

 ing up the baj^s commenced for the torrents and the sea. The fluvial 

 waters brought their alluvium, and deposited it as an even strand at 

 the foot of the mountains, while the sea levelled with sheets of sand 

 or mud all the fragments of rocks which it had worn away by its 

 waves. Already in a great number of Norwegian fjords this work 

 of transforming the domain of the waters into firm land has made 

 very sensible progress, and if we knew the amount per century of the 

 augmentation to the shores, we should be able to calculate approxi- 

 mately the epoch at which the valley was free from ice. On the 

 inclined eastern side, towards the open country of Sweden, an analo- 

 gous work is accomplished ; there, the glaciers have been replaced, 

 not by the waves of the sea, but by the lacustrine waters divided 

 into different basins, and these waters also retreat gradually before 

 the alluvium of the torrents. In the same way, in the great chain 

 of the Swiss Alps, several deep depressions, formerly the be,ds of im- 

 mense glaciers, have become a sort of continental fjord, such as the 

 lakes of Maggiore, Iseo, Lugano, Como, and Oarda.* These lacus- 

 trine basins are closed at the south by large moraines, like the sea- 

 gates of Norway, and their waters, like those of the fjords, are gra- 

 dually displaced by the alluvium brought down by Alpine torrents. 



Situated more to the south than the fjords of Scandinavia, and 

 nearer the source of the warm current flowing from the Antilles, 

 the western bays of Scotland must have been free from ice long 

 before the coasts of Norway, and it was still earlier that the indent- 

 ations of the coast-lines of Ireland and Brittany ceased to serve as 

 beds to the solidified snows of the surrounding mountains. As to 

 the shores of the British Islands turned to the east towards the 

 North Sea, they have certainly long been freed from ice, for then as 

 now the winds from the west and south-west prevailed in Europe, 

 and carried the rains over the slopes of the mountains inclined to- 

 wards the Atlantic ; on the opposite slope the glaciers are sooner 

 melted, because of the want of the necessary moisture. This is the 

 reason of the striking contrast presented in the British Isles and 

 * Oscar Peschel, Ausland, 1886. 



