NATURE 



117 



THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 18S0 



"OLD NORWAY" 

 Die Geologic des siidlichen imd miitlcrcn Norwegen. 

 Herausgegeben von Dr. Theodor Kjerulf; autorisirte 

 deutsche Aufgabe von Dr. Adolf Gurlt. (Bonn : Max 

 Cohen und Sohn, 1880.) 



IN that rugged northern land where the mingled Atlantic 

 and Arctic tides course round a network of islands, 

 and lave the shores of deep lonely fjords, sending their 

 waters far inland to the very base of snowfield and glacier, 

 the people, with the patriotism of mountaineers, sing 

 enthusiastically of " Gamle Norge " — Old Norway. And 

 well may they sing of a land that by its scenery and 

 climate has moulded their habits of thought, their tra- 

 ditions, their literature, and has knit their bodily frames 

 into that muscular type for which the hardy Norsemen 

 have been famous from time immemorial. Dear Gamle 

 Norge ! The sound of its praise awakens a responsive 

 chord in the breast of many a Briton, leading him to 

 reflect how much of the vigour and success of his own 

 countrymen may be due to the fresh blood which came 

 to them from the robust north, and reminding him of 

 the wild creed and spirit-stirring songs which his an- 

 cestors shared with their kinsmen of the northern fjords. 

 Well may men speak of " old" Norway. Even as regards 

 human records, its antiquity goes back far enough to merit 

 that appellation. But if we pass to the earlier history of 

 Europe the fitness of the epithet becomes singularly im- 

 pressive. To that northern region of tableland and valley 

 the geologist looks as the cradle of this continent. The 

 plains of Russia and Germany are formations but of 

 yesterday. The Urals, the Alps, the Pyrenees, the high 

 grounds of Bohemia, Saxony, and Central France have 

 appeared at various widely separated epochs, and have 

 undergone many vicissitudes in a long course of ages. 

 But the uplands of Scandinavia, though they too have 

 not been without their mutations, already existed as land 

 almost at the beginning of those ages which are chronicled 

 in the rocky records of the earth's crust. From the sand 

 and mud washed down from these uplands the formations 

 have been derived out of which, for example, most of the 

 highlands of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have been 

 built up. So far as we can tell, the earliest land of Europe 

 rose in the north and north-west. The subsequent growth 

 of the continent has been over the tract of shallow sea by 

 which the first land was bounded. 



There is thus a peculiar interest in the study of the 

 geological structure and history of Scandinavia. It is in 

 that region that by far the largest fragment of archaian 

 Europe exists and that the data are chiefly to be sought 

 from which the earliest chapters of European geological 

 history must be written. Most cordially, therefore, will all 

 geologists welcome the volume which Dr. Kjerulf has just 

 published for their information. It is by much the most 

 important summary of Norwegian geology which has yet 

 appeared. 



In an interesting preface a sketch is given of the 

 progress of geological inquiry in Norway. After nume- 

 rous private and unconnected researches by natives and 

 Vol. XXII.— No. 554 



foreigners in different parts of the country, a systematic 

 geological survey of the country was in 1858 projected 

 by Dr. Kjerulf and Bergmeister Tellef Dahll, and on the 

 approval of the plan by the Norwegian Government, was 

 commenced at the national expense. Its main object was 

 to make a geological map of the country with the requisite 

 sections. The Survey was organised very economically 

 under Kjerulf and Dahll, with no special office, no place 

 to store specimens, no laboratory, and no official channel 

 of publication for its memoirs. With praiseworthy 

 enthusiasm the two geologists continued for ten years to 

 work in the field during the brief Norwegian summers, 

 either together or singly, taking with them as volunteer 

 assistants such students of mining and others as chose to 

 accompany them. In i865 Dahll undertook the investi- 

 gation of Northern Norway, so that the charge of the 

 Central and Southern provinces then fell to Kjerulf. The 

 latter geologist, with the assistance of other observers, 

 whose share in the work is duly chronicled, has at 

 intervals published maps and sections of the area under 

 his control, and in particular a general map on the scale 

 of one-millionth. As a fit conclusion to the labours of 

 a quarter of a century among the geological formations 

 of Norway, he has published at Christiania a quarto 

 volume with an atlas of plates, giving a concise account 

 of the geological features of the central and southern part 

 of the country.^ This work is in Norse ; but the author, 

 with the view of making it more widely known, has 

 intrusted it to Dr. Gurlt, who has rendered it successfully 

 into German, and has had it republished in a convenient 

 form. 



Every student of metamorphism and the crystalline 

 schists must procure Dr. Kjerulf s work. It contains a 

 store of facts of the utmost importance for all theoretical 

 questions in this most interesting and difficult department 

 of geology. At the same time the superficial geolo.gy is 

 not neglected. The first part of the volume treats of the 

 loose surface formations — especially of the erratic blocks, 

 moraines, and glacial striae. These phenomena are 

 illustrated by maps, on one of which — that of the striated 

 rock-surfaces — an explanatory remark affords a charac- 

 teristic sample of the author's cautious spirit of observa- 

 tion : — " The directions of the striae are expressed on the 

 map, as in nature, by lines ; the observer must himself 

 judge whence they come and whither they go." The 

 second part, devoted to a summary of the geology of the 

 Christiania district, contains a table of fossiliferous 

 deposits, which, extending from the base of the Primordial 

 zone to the top of the Upper Silurian formations, are 

 shown to attain there a thicluiess of 2,700 feet. There is 

 likewise an important tabular statement of the horizons 

 of the leading organic remains of these older pakeozoic 

 deposits. In Part III. a description is given of the 

 " Grundgebirge," or fundamental rocks of Southern 

 Norway. The author shows that though these 

 have sometimes been classed under the general term 

 gneiss, they contain other rocks, especially various 

 schists, quartzites, conglomerates, and limestones, and 

 that gneiss is rather a structure belonging to rocks 

 of different ages than a formation of one geological 

 date. He regards the bottom gneiss as a melamorphic 

 representative of ordinary sedimentary formations, in 



• " Udsigt over det Sydlige Norges Geologi" (Christiania, 1879). 



