THE FORMATION OF FJORDS. 50 



science, yet the desolation remains, and seems inseparable from a 

 scene Nature never intended as the abode of man. The depths 

 below almost rival the heights of the mountain summit : bottom is 

 rarely reached under 200 fathoms, even close to the shore. 1 The 

 deep inlets on the Norwegian coast, known as fjords — a familiar 

 name, now applied generally to such breaks in the coast-line — are 

 two well known to require description. On the coast of Greenland 

 are again found similar Sounds, indenting both sides of that group 

 of islands (?), but more particularly the western or Davis Strait 

 shore. Most of these inlets are thickly studded with floating ice- 

 bergs, and others are so densely choked with them as to receive 

 the name of ice-fjords. All of these fjords form the highways by 

 which the icebergs float out from the glaciers at their heads, when- 

 even these prolongations of the great mer de glace of Greenland (the 

 " inland iis ") reach the sea. After a long and careful study of 

 these fjords in most parts of the world where they are found, 1 

 have come to the conclusion that we must look upon glaciers as 

 the material which hollowed them in such an uniform manner. 

 Everywhere you see marks on the sides of the British Columbian 

 fjords of ice-action ; 2 and there seems no reason to doubt but that 

 they were at one time the beds of ancient glaciers, which, grinding 

 their outward course to the sea, scooped out these inlets of this 

 great and uniform depth. At the time when these inlets formed 

 the beds of glaciers, the coast was higher than now. We know 

 that the coast of Greenland is now falling ; and, supposing that 

 the present rate of depression goes on, many glacier valleys will in 

 course of time become ice-fjords. After having seen not a little of 

 the abrading action of ice during three different visits to the Arctic 

 regions, extending in circuit from the Spitzbergen Sea to the upper 

 reaches of Baffin Bay and westward and southward to the " Meta 

 Incognita " of Frobisher, I cannot side with those geologists who, 

 judging ice-action merely from what is seen of the comparatively 

 puny glaciers of the Alps and other European ranges, are inclined 

 to undor-estimate the abrading power of the glacier. 1 do not, 

 however, for a moment pretend to assert that the valleys in 

 which glaciers in tho Arctic regions (or elsewhere) now lie were 

 originally formed by the glacier. On the contrary, I am at one 

 with those who believe that these rents were chiefly due to tho 



1 'Vancouver [aland Pilot,' \>. 139 (Admiral Richards). 



2 A fact which my friend, Dr. Oomrie, i;.n., whose familiarity with the British 

 Columbian coast is well known, informs me that he has repeatedly confirmed. I 

 am authorised to say that in his mind qo doubt remains that these fjords were 

 formed in the manner I have described. 



