THE NORWEGIAN COAST PLAIN. 



349 



frontier towards Russia. A map of it will be communicated to 

 the "Year-book of the Geological Survey of Norway for the 

 years 1892-3. Kristiania, 1894." 



The coast plain is rather rough and uneven, with small val- 

 leys, and often with innumerable small crags. This roughness 

 of the coast plain, which is partly covered by the sea, has pro- 

 duced the myriads of islands, large and small, and the skerries, or 



Fig. 3. Mount Alden and the Varoc Islands. 



insulated rocks, which are scattered along the greater part of the 

 Norwegian coast. On this coast plain lie the towns of Havanger, 

 Bergen, Tromsoe, and others. Here live hundreds of thousands 

 of people out of our two millions. It is thus seen to be of great 

 importance to our nation. Without it, the whole western coast 

 would be like the bare region east of North Cape, where the 

 coast plain is generally wanting. 



The coast plain is a plain of denudation, or a base-level. 

 "It marks a sea-level, to which the land has been reduced by 

 sub-serial forces." It is glaciated and, in the author's opinion, it 

 has been worked out in periods previous to the glacial period, 

 and in the intervals of that time, when the land was free from 

 ice. The time that has elapsed since the ice-age is too short to 

 be of any importance for the great work performed. 



In comparison with the great geographical phenomena here 

 treated, the present strand-lines are small things, though they 

 give evidence that the forces, which made the coast plain, are 

 still working. It has occurred here, as so often elsewhere, that 

 one remarks the small things before the great ones. 



Hans Reusch. 



