I o Norzvay and the Norivegians 



glacial era of whicli we have already spoken. It has 

 been the wear and tear of the superincumbent sea of 

 ice which, going on through ages and ages, has rubbed 

 down the tops of the hills, has destroyed their fine and 

 jagged outlines, and has reduced them to that puddingy 

 contour which we cannot but deplore. Of course, since 

 the glacial age departed, atmospheric influences have 

 come in and partly modified its effects. To these are 

 due the return to rougli and jagged outlines which we 

 find on many of the cliff-sides. But these have not 

 had the effect of altering^ the general contour of the 

 Norwegian higldands. From the islands of the Skjasr- 

 gaard, or island barrier, to the highest of the eminences 

 which enclose the fjords of Norway, the effects of this 

 glacial rubbing may be detected. When the traveller 

 has once been put upon the track he will easily dis- 

 tinguish the marks of the corrodinfj Q-kcier as it ground 

 down the hill-sides. He will constantly detect on the 

 rocks what are called the glacial striations, the scorings 

 of the surface produced either by the ice itself, or more 

 commonly by stones carried along in the ice and ground 

 against the surface of the rock. He may study tlie 

 effects which the glaciers of Norway are producing at 

 this very moment, by going up to some of the branches 

 of the Jostedalsbrae or the Folgefond, the two greatest 

 glaciers of Norway (of which more anon). In some of 

 these branches the glacier is actually advancing down 

 the valley, and he will see trees which it is beginning 

 to push over on its downward march. Such a branch is 

 the Buarbraj branch of the Folgefond, near Odde. But 

 in other places, — and these are the more instructive, — 

 he will find receding branches, which, as they decrease, 



