1 6 Norivay and the No7^wegians 



beach itself slopes gradually into the sea. This must 

 be the case in the natural course of circumstances. 

 Through the ages fragments must detach themselves from 

 the rock and roll down to its base to be in time ground 

 to sand and pebbles by the action of the tides. And if 

 the fjords were like other bays we should see the same 

 phenomena here. The reason why we do not see them 

 springs from the main distinction between the fjord and 

 all other firths or bays, the most remarkable one of all, 

 though one which does not, as a rule, come under the 

 eye of the tourist. The fjords are much deeper than 

 the outside sea. We may say that, as a rule, the water 

 which lies between the outer island belt and the land, 

 into which it runs in creeks and fjords, is very much 

 deeper than the sea some way outside the skjmrgaard. 

 In many cases the area of greater depth runs a consider- 

 able way beyond the sljcergaarcl. The difference is 

 often very striking. Now, here we have certainly a most 

 striking peculiarity in the fjords of Scandinavia, and one 

 which distinguishes them from all other estuaries, bays, 

 and river-mouths that we are likely to meet with in our 

 travels. The cause of this peculiarity is precisely the 

 same as the cause of the peculiarity of the rounded 

 mountain tops of Norway, namely, the huge glacier 

 which once lay upon the whole peninsula. 



It was this vast sheet of ice which, pushing by its 

 weight always down towards the sea, scraped out where- 

 ever the ground was softest the deep valleys of Norway ; 

 and when it got to the water's edge continued, as it 

 were, the bed of these valleys into the sea, and hollowed 

 out the vast depths of the fjords. 



" The grandest display of ice-action which we could 



