102 
NATURE 
[AprIL. 18, 1912 
occupied them. They are due to a series of uplifts 
which happened mainly in Pliocene times after the 
great Miocene movements which in Europe formed 
the Alps and the associated mountain chains. In 
nearly all cases the fiord valleys were formed in 
Pliocene times; hence the Pleistocene ice used the 
fiords and did not originate them. 
It is therefore necessary to find an explanation of 
these complex valley systems independent of the 
ice action, which has given some of them their most 
conspicuous features. Facetted spurs and long 
parallel-walled valleys with hanging valleys upon 
their sides are formed by other than glacial agencies. 
They may be due directly to earth movements, as in 
the fiords of Dalmatia. Thus the famous fiord of 
Cattaro is flanked by facetted spurs, and the forma- 
tion of the facets is due to recent faulting. The 
straight Dalmatian trough-valleys with their high 
walls and hanging valleys are due to recent earth 
movements, aided by the comparative weakness of 
the rivers owing to the porosity of the limestone 
which is the prevalent rock. These fiords are due to 
the earth movements which formed the Adriatic Sea, 
and all the fiord systems of the world are related 
to earth movements. 
valleys cut by erosion, but intersecting fractures. The 
most striking features in the distribution of fiords 
connect them not with ice movements but with earth 
movements. The fiord systems of all parts of the 
world are arranged, not 
highlands, but as angular networks resembling inter- 
secting cracks in slabs of twisted glass. This fact 
is apparent from Kjerulf’s plan of the fiords of 
southern Norway, which showed that all the fiords, 
lakes, and main valleys of that country can be 
arranged into a number of groups each with a 
definite direction, and the different series cross at 
sharp angles. The same arrangement of the fiords 
on intersecting lines is shown in Alaska, Patagonia, 
New Zealand, and Scotland. 
The Scottish lochs and their valleys may be 
arranged in four groups. The most conspicuous 
lines in the coast of Scotland run east and west, as 
in the Pentland Firth and the southern side of the 
Moray Firth. Many of the western lochs, such 
as Loch Hourn, Loch Leven, Loch Eil, Loch 
Rannoch, and Lower Loch Etive, trend in this direc- 
tion, which also occurs in the northern coast of 
Connaught in Ireland, and along the northern coast 
of Wales. 
The second series of lines trend north and south at 
right angles to the first. 
The members of the third group trend north-east 
and south-west; they include Glen More, the line of 
the Caledonian Canal, the Kyle of Tongue, the valley 
of the Spey, Upper Loch Etive, Loch Awe, Loch 
Fyne, many of the lochs around the Sound of Jura, 
and the central part of Loch Tay. 
The direction of the fourth group is at right angles 
to part of the Glen More lines, and its series of 
vallevs and lochs extend north-west and south-east, 
and include Loch Broom on the north-western coast 
and Lower Loch Fyne and Loch Crinan, and the | 
Sound of Islay; also various inland lakes, such as | 
Loch Shin. 
These directions are not those that would be ex- 
pected in vallevs formed by glacial erosion. The 
largest centre of glacial accumulation in Scotland must 
have been the Grampians of eastern Aberdeenshire, 
for though the highest point of the area around Ben 
Macdhui and Cairngorm is slightly lower than the 
summit of Ben Nevis, it belongs to the largest area 
of hiehlands in Scotland. All this land was unques- 
tionably covered by ice, and in no part of Scotland are 
glacial phenomena better displayed. Most of the ice 
NO. 2216, vor. 89] 
in radial lines from the | 
| of glaciers. 
probably flowed eastward and north-eastward and 
reached the North Sea; but nowhere along the eastern 
coast are there any fiords, and in spite of the great power 
of the glaciers, even the long narrow fresh-water 
lochs are confined to western Scotland. 
Ben Nevis was also intensely glaciated, and the 
chief ice movements in that area were from south- 
west to north-east, for the great centre of accumula- 
tion was over the country between Ben Nevis and 
the coast, owing to the heavy precipitation of snow 
piling up a huge ice dome. Valley glaciers radiated 
from Ben Nevis in the last stages of the glaciation, 
but the chief lochs in this district are not radial from 
Ben Nevis, but form a circular series around it. 
The angular fiord networks also occur in regions 
where there are no indications of the former existence 
Thus the colony of Hong Kong, includ- 
ing the adjacent peninsula on the mainland of China, 
has a fiord-like series of intersecting valleys, and a 
most beautiful example of the same arrangement 
occurs in the peninsula of Sinai. The Gulf of 
Akabah has many of the characters of a fiord, and 
Prof. Bonney has so called it; and, if Sinai were 
| partially submerged, it would be divided into angular 
Their networks do not resemble | 
islands and peninsulas, separated by parallel-sided, 
steep-walled valleys, which would form a_ typical 
series of fiords. 
The explanation of fiord valleys as due to inter- 
secting fractures explains the chief facts of their 
distribution. It explains their restriction to plateau 
countries, as it is only where wide areas have been 
uplifted that they are shattered by regular intersect- 
ing cracks. It also explains their restriction to areas 
of old rocks, for the younger rocks yield by stretching 
and not by cracking. 
The fiord valleys were not formed by gaping cracks 
of the full width of the present valleys. The cracks 
caused narrow clefts along the planes of weakness, 
which have been widened by denudation. Water and 
air enter them and cause the decay of the rocks. 
Streams remove the weakened rock material, and the 
clefts are gradually widened into river valleys, and 
if the country be subsequently glaciated the ice enters 
the valleys and completes their formation. 
Uplift alone is, however, inadequate to produce 
fiords. Subsidence also is necessary to let in the 
sea. In nearly all fiord countries the last move- 
ment has been a _ fresh elevation. Many  fiord 
| thresholds appear to be due to a tilting of the country 
at the last uplift. 
Fiords, therefore, are produced in regions which 
have undergone repeated earth movements. They 
mark out areas of the crust which in recent geological 
times have undergone alternate elevation and depres- 
sion. These regions are mainly polar and cirecum- 
polar, as in the equatorial zone the uplifts have Leen 
more local. There are numeous raised coral reefs, 
but the tropical coasts of Africa, Australia, and 
America lack the widespread raised sea beaches which 
are so charactertistic of the chief fiord regions. The 
restriction of the fiord areas to high northern and 
southern latitudes gives a clue to the cause of the 
fiord movements. They may be explained as a de- 
formation of the earth which is more marked in the 
polar than in the tropical zones. If a flexible circular 
band be rotated about its axis it becomes oval, and 
the radial movement is greater on the flattened polar 
sides than on the raised equatorial zone. The de- 
formation of the earth which produced the fiords 
caused greater vertical movements in the polar and 
circumpolar regions than in the tropics, and thus 
fiords are characteristic of higher latitudes. 
I have therefore endeavoured by this rapid survey 
of a wide subject to show that fiords are not only 
attractive from their unique scenery and their special 
