332 cAv. w. r. .TKRVis, r.n.s., on thalassographical and 



dition of river valleys dariiif^ tlio uprise of the whole of the- 

 Sciiiidinavirtii promontory and all that part of Europe, whicli 

 is the oldest land in Europe except part of Moravia. It is the 

 oldest land in the north of Eui'ope ; and all the time, while part 

 of the British Islands and other parts of Europe were submergetl 

 under the sea, receiving enormous deposits of great thickness, this 

 old Scandinavian land remained above the waters, and the rivers 

 were employed in ever deepening their channels. We all know- 

 that when a river flows down it continually deepens its channel 

 from its source to its outlet ; but, as I liave observed, and the 

 author points out, that is not the case with these fjords. They 

 are, of course, submerged river valleys. That is unquestionable ; 

 and the question arises, Why is it that they do not, as in the case of 

 ordinary rivers, continue to deepen their channels all the way ^ 

 The author attributes the shallowing of the channel towards tlie 

 mouth to the silting up of that part of the channel. For my pai't,. 

 I cannot accept that explanation as at all sufficient. In fact, the 

 beds of these submerged rivers are "rock basins." Their floors 

 are of solid rock, not silt, towards their outlet. Of course they arc 

 covered, to a certain extent, with silt and mud carried down and 

 deposited, on their floors ; but their solid part is pi'obably not far 

 below the silting beds, and, in the case of the islands, comes up to 

 the surface. In fact, the valleys are old rock basins. [^The author 

 here illustrated his mecniiiig by a draicii/j on the hoard.^ The latc^ 

 Sir Andrew Ramsay expounded the formation of rock basins by 

 showing that they are basins scooped out or eroded by glacial 

 action. In Norwa}', as we all know, we find the most remarkable 

 examples of glacial erosion. All aloiig these fjords the rocks, 

 where not covered with detritus or old sea beaches, are glaciated 

 in a most remarkable manner. You can understand how tliat 

 during the Glacial period enormous masses of ice, coming down from 

 the sides of the mountains and entering these old river valleys, 

 loaded with stones and rocks, would continually, as long as the ice 

 lasted, be engaged in eroding the floor of the valley deeper and 

 deeper, until, at last, a rock basin was formed ; because the farther 

 the ice receded from the mountain source the less powerful would 

 be the erosion, and, consequently, the greater amount of the 

 erosion would be near the base of the mountains and the higlicr 

 part of the valleys. In Scotland we have precisely similai- 

 instances of rock basins — for instance, Loch Lomond, which is 



