104 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



deeply furrowed from top to bottom, and these fur- 

 rows being generally full of snow, while the dark 

 gray ridges between them are bare, give the mount- 

 ains a sort of ribbed appearance, which renders 

 them very conspicuous objects, and visible from an 

 immense distance. 



All the lower hills of East Spitzbergen are much 

 of the same shape and contour, and they all appear 

 to be composed of the same shaly secondary lime- 

 stone and sandstone, containing here and there a 

 band of coal ; but on the shores of the great bays 

 called Stour Fiord and Deeva Bay, where the sea 

 is not exposed to the violence of the current and 

 gales from the northeast, the detritus brought down 

 from the mountains, instead of being perpetually 

 washed away from the base of the cliffs, is allow- 

 ed to accumulate ; and flowing each year, or each 

 flood, over the top of the layer already deposited, it 

 gradually encroaches on the sea and forms a mud- 

 dy flat, which slopes at a gradually increasing angle 

 from the almost perpendicular limestone cliffs to a 

 nearly dead level. This plain gets, by slow degrees, 

 covered with mosses, but is for a long time liable 

 to be deluged again with mud and shale from the 

 mountains, until the slopes of the latter get so much 

 reduced by this process that they assume a more 

 permanent shape. These plains are in some places 

 three to four miles broad, and, although their sur- 

 face may not have undergone any of these natural 

 top dressings for ages, they are generally so very 



