FORMATION OP SUBALPINE FLATS. 105 



soft and slushy that in walking you go up to the 

 knees at every step. The brief Arctic summer is 

 evidently insufficient to dry the ground from the 

 enormous quantity of water with which it is satu- 

 rated by the winter's snow. The water in these 

 bays is generally very muddy, from being so heav- 

 ily charged with sediment washed off the hills by 

 the melting snow, and they are unquestionably be- 

 coming shallowed very rapidly. This is a process 

 which, no doubt, is taking place more or less all 

 over the world, and by which all subalpine flats 

 and valleys have been formed already ; but there is 

 no country which I have ever visited, or of which 

 I have ever read, in which it can be observed to be 

 actually happening so conspicuously and so rapid- 

 ly as in Spitzbergen, and more particularly around 

 the two gulfs of Stour Fiord and Deeva Bay. The 

 actual creation of flats and valleys by the processes 

 of denudation of the mountains and deposition of 

 the sediment is there laid bare to the beholder so 

 plainly that "he who runs may read." If there 

 still exists any one who doubts the power of pres- 

 ent causes to remodel the surface of the earth, I 

 should strongly recommend him to take a trip to 

 Deeva Bay, and he may rest assured that he will 

 come back a wiser man. 



On the 21st we were becalmed off Black Point, 

 and, leaving the sloop there, we took to the boats 

 and rowed for about seven miles up Deeva Bay, to 

 where two good-sized islands stretch several miles 



