CHARACTERISrJCS OF FJORD IX LETS 1/5 



some distance seaward is bounded by a fringe! of rocky 

 islands. Shores of tliis character are common in the northern 

 hemisphere from the parallel of 40° to near the Pole. They 

 are noticeable also in the southern part of the earth along 

 the coasts south of the same parallel. The feature is less 

 conspicuous near the southern Pole, for the reason that the 

 greater portion of that realm is occupied by the sea. The 

 people of the Scandinavian peninsula have long applied to 

 the deep inlets of that coast the name of fiord. Geologists 

 therefore apply the term to all indentations of this character 

 wherever they are found, and to the regions in which these 

 indentations characteristically and plentifully occur they give 

 the name of fiord zone. 



In their form the indentations of the coast in the fiord 

 districts differ widely from those which belong to the other 

 classes which we have already considered or have hereafter to 

 note. Where best developed this class of inlets exhibits the 

 following peculiarities : The valley occupied by the embayed 

 waters is remarkably deep. The shores are steep, so that a 

 cross section of the trough is distinctly U-shaped. If the 

 region in which a fiord lies be elevated, its sides may rise as 

 in Norway to mountainous heights, but indentations of this 

 description occur even where the shore lands attain to no 

 o-reat height above the sea. In characteristic fiords the water 

 within the basin may have the depth of many hundred feet ; 

 tracing a line of soundings from the interior of the liord 

 seaw^ard, the w^ater is often found to shallow near the 

 entrance of the indentation until the depth is onl\- a small 

 fraction of that which exists in the land-locked parts of the 

 valley. This sill or barrier near the mouth of the inlet is a 

 frequent but by no means an invariable feature in the fiord 



