174 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 



away, and that probably by another, and, perhaps, another 

 still ; as is often found to be the case in making such 

 ascents. And he saw little more than peaks of rocks and 

 plains of snow, and a portion of the fond, or motherland of 

 glaciers, the vast table-land of snow arid ice from which 

 the numerous glaciers of this region descend. He descended 

 and made for the pass that seemed the most likely to be 

 the correct one. Of what he saw he writes : 



' On reaching the summit a singular scene presented 

 itself. At the foot of a vast amphitheatre of snowy moun- 

 tain peaks is a gloomy basin of rock, filled with the waters 

 of a half-frozen lake. The water comes directly from the 

 snow above, and is of a peculiar blue white, semi-opaque, 

 London -milk colour, common to such snow water. This 

 lake is called the Stiggevand, which, I believe, may be 

 translated " Stygian Pool ;" and a better name could 

 scarcely be invented, for its gloom and desolate aspect 

 would satisfy the imagination of the most dyspeptic and 

 bilious of poets. 



' The hollows, or basins, which occupy a higher level 

 than the lake, are filled with snow and with ice formed by 

 the melting and re-freezing of the snow. Thus filled up, 

 they form great plains, having a surface of virgin snow, 

 without a footmark, or a scratch, or spot visible. These 

 apparent plains are, however, not quite level, but slope 

 towards the rocky precipice rising above the lake. The 

 ice sea, pressed forward by the mass above, flows over 

 these walls in great bending sheets that reach a short 

 way down, and then break off and drop in masses into 

 the lake, their broken edges forming a blue cornice fringed 

 with icicles. If these walls of the lake shore had suffi- 

 cient slope to hold the icy cascade without breaking, 

 glaciers would be formed ; or if the supply of breaking 

 masses were sufficiently great to overpower the thawing 

 below, the basin of the lake would be filled up and become 

 continuous with the great ice and snow-fields above, and 

 might extend onwards to the spot on which I was standing, 

 or even overflow this, and push down the valley up which 



