THE "GREAT ICE AGE." 129 



extends below the sea. This was not so easily answered by 

 the means at my disposal, as I travelled hastily round the 

 coast from Stavanger via the North Cape to the frontier 

 of Russian Lapland in ordinary passenger steam-packets,, 

 which made their stoppages to suit other requirements 

 than mine. Still, I was able to land at many stations, and 

 found, wherever there was a gently sloping strand at the. 

 mouth of an estuary, or of a valley whose river had already 

 deposited its suspended matter (a common case hereabouts, 

 where so many rivers terminate in long estuaries or open 

 out into bag-shaped lakes near the coast), and where the 

 bottom had not been modified by secondary glaciation, that 

 the receding tide displayed a sea-bottom of till, covered 

 with a thin stratum of loose stones and shells. In some 

 cases the tijl was so bare that it appeared like a stiff mud 

 deposited but yesterday. 



At Bodo, an arctic coast station on the north side of the 

 mouth of the Salten fjord (lat. 67 20'), where the packets 

 make a long halt, is a very characteristic example of this; 

 a deposit of very tough till forming an extensive plain just 

 on the sea-level. The tide rises over this, and the wa*ves 

 break upon it, forming a sort of beach by washing away 

 some of the finer material, and leaving the stones behind. 

 The ground being so nearly level, the reach of the tide is 

 very great, and thus a large area is exposed at low tide. 

 Continuous with this, and beyond the limit of high tide, is 

 an extensive inland plain covered with coarse grass and 

 weeds growing directly upon the surface of the original flat 

 pavement of till. 



There is no river at Bodo; the sea is clear, leaves no ap- 

 preciable deposit, and the degree of denudation of the clayey 

 matrix of the till is very much smaller than might be ex- 

 pected. The limit of high water is plainly shown by a beach 

 of shells and stones, but at low tide the ground over which 

 the sea has receded is a bare and scarcely modified surface 

 of till. I have observed the same at low water at many 

 other arctic stations. In the Tromso Sund there are shal- 

 lows at some distance from the shore which are just covered 

 with water at low tide. I landed and waded on these, and 

 found the bottom to consist of till covered with a thin layer 



