194 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 



sea ; and after this was done, the whole valley, mountains, 

 river, and its deposits were all uplifted by the fiery forces 

 within the earth, which battle against the working of the 

 waters outside, raising new mountains while the waters 

 wear the old ones down. Such an uplifting would lengthen 

 the journey of the river, as the sea rolled back from the 

 uplifted land. In its new course the river would cut 

 through the soft plain it had formerly deposited on the 

 bottom of the ancient fiord, and continue cutting down till 

 it reached nearly the level of the sea ; and thus the depth 

 of the cutting would measure the amount of uplifting. 



' Throughout nearly the whole of to-day's walk about 

 twenty-five miles terraces formed of alluvium were 

 visible. In some parts the river flows at the foot of a steep 

 bank of even slope, above three hundred feet high, the top 

 of which is a cultivated or wooded level; at other parts there 

 are several step-like terraces, parallel roads, as they are 

 called in Scotland. Near to Medhaus station I counted 

 five of these, one above the other, and perfectly parallel. 

 From the course of the river, and configuration of the 

 valley, I suspect that these terraces have been formed in an 

 estuary which has been rendered high and dry by the up- 

 lifting of the land. If so all the neighbouring valleys that 

 carry considerable rivers into the sea should present similar 

 phenomena, more or less distinctly marked/ That this 

 is the case with some of them, I knew from reading the 

 accounts of other travellers. It is the general opinion of 

 geologists that the whole of Scandinavia has been uplifted 

 at a geologically recent period, 



