APPEARANCES OF GLACIERS AND SNOW-FIELDS. 175 



I had come. That this was formerly the case is shown by 

 abundant evidences at every step of the day's walk, and 

 the latter part of yesterday's. 



' The soft, though sharp outline of the virgin snow, 

 standing against the blue sky, just where it pours over the 

 precipice, is very beautiful. There are no birds up here, 

 no roaring torrent, no rustling of trees, no buzzing of 

 insects ; not even the ripple of a thin stream, as heard on 

 the Swiss glaciers, but a silence that is almost absolute, 

 and adds vastly to the effect of such a scene, 



' The snow-plains, which are here seen bending over in 

 cascades above the lake, are the northern terminations of 

 the great table-land of snow forming the fond, or "Snee- 

 fond," of the Jostedals IBrseen, a great untrodden desert 

 of perpetual snow and ice, extending for about fifty miles 

 to the south-west, with a varying width, and covering 

 altogether a space of about 400 square miles. Everv 

 valley of favourable configuration that branches from this 

 great reservoir of ice is filled with a glacier or ice torrent, 

 replacing the water torrents of the valleys that descend 

 from the Dovre and other fjelds, that are not snow- 

 covered. 



'I now descended over similar ground to that on the 

 opposite side of the pass. ... I walked on over a 

 wide field of glacier moraine, leading at last to the outlet 

 of the Stigevand ; a torrent of respectable dimensions 

 which, fed by a succession of glaciers, grows to a river,* as 

 it flows down the Jostedal. At the point where the stony 

 fjeld narrows and descends to form the head of this valley 

 the torrent makes a succession of falls over walls of piled- 

 up boulders.' 



* The Stor-elv, or Large River. 



