CHAPTER XV. 

 MECHANICAL ACTION OF GLACIERS. 



BESIDES the interest which attaches to neves and glaciers 

 of Norway as indications of temperature at high altitudes, 

 they possess an interest for students of physical geography 

 as remains of yet more extensive neV^s and glaciers, 

 which in. bye-gone ages exerted a powerful influence in 

 cutting up and carving, or rather graving, the contour of 

 the country, creating the wild wonders of its features 

 which make it so attractive to tourists who are in quest 

 of the wild, the magnificent, and the grand in nature. 



As the forests of Norway are the remains of forests 

 which once covered more or less entirely the whole of 

 Europe, so are these neVes and glaciers the remains of a 

 sheet of snow and ice which once covered extensively 

 Northern Europe, if not the whole continent and lands 

 beyond it ; and the existing fiords may be looked upon as 

 having been to a great extent, if not entirely, the creation 

 of that far-reaching sheet, as under the superincumbent 

 pressure of the mass, it sought, here and there, to find a 

 way to the lower level of the ocean bed, ploughing, and 

 undermining, and sweeping along with it all debris as it 

 advanced on its resistless course. 



The interest which may be awakened in looking upon 

 the wild outlines and contour of these fiords in proceeding 

 from the coast to the glaciers on the elevated plateaux 

 of the interior, may be intensified, if they be contemplated 

 under a dominating influence of such considerations. 



With this view I would bring forward what has been 

 told of one of these fiords by the experienced traveller 

 whom we took as our guide from Christiania to the 



