THALASSOLOGICAL NOTES ON THE NORTH SEA. 



331 



But it is a very interesting subject and deserves careful attention, 

 and I hope some of those present will favour us with their views. 



Professor E. Hull. — I think our thanks are due to the author 

 of this pajDer, Cavaliere Jervis. He is a Fellow of the Geological 

 Society, and has for a long time been Curator of the Royal 

 Museum at Turin. When at Turin, last autumn, I had the 

 pleasure of calling- on him, and I was much gratified by that visit. 

 Our thanks are also due to Professor Logan Lobley for reading 

 the paper. 



Now, as has been observed, the subject which Mr. Jervis has 

 opened is a very wide one and opens out many questions of 

 interest. 



I am glad to say that Mr. Harmer, whose elaborate investiga- 

 tions in this region are testified to by his paper read before the 

 Geological Society, is able to attend to-day, and no doubt he will 

 meet the points that the author has raised with reference to these 

 channels. 



I do not see any necessary discrepancies between the results 

 arrived at by Mr. Harmer and those arrived at by the author as 

 regards the Palaeorhine. 1 think both are compatible with each 

 other. 



Now the principal points the author has brought before us in 

 the first part of his paper are the soundings of the fjords, and he 

 has brought to our notice a very remarkable circumstance, viz., 

 that these fjords, which run up for so many miles into the heart 

 of the Scandinavian mountains, almost always (perhaps I might 

 say always) deepen their channels as they go up into the mountains 

 from their mouths where they open out into the North Sea. 

 That is a very remarkable fact, and the soundings testify to that 

 without question. We have several illustrations of it mentioned 

 by the author — in the great Langesund fjord, for iastance, and 

 the Hardanger fjord, where the depth varies from 315 fathoms to 

 160 fathoms, or a difference of 155 fathoms ; and the Sogne fjord, 

 where for the first 25 miles the depth is from 630 to 660 fathoms, 

 until it is reduced to 128 fathoms, or a difference of 532 fathoms. 



Now what is the origin of these fjords ? Unquestionably they 

 are old river valleys ; and river valleys of immense geological 

 antiquity. They come down, probably, from the period preceding 

 the Old Red Sandstone, or Devonian, as their representatives in 

 Scotland certainly do, and they have remained in the con- 



