390 T. F. Jamieson — the Scandinavian Glacier. 



gradient of its surface increases always towards the outer edge, and 

 that for the first hundred miles from the border we would not be 

 justified in assuming an average slope of less than 60 feet per mile, 

 and probably 70 would be nearer the truth. Then for the remainder 

 of the distance suppose we put the slope as low as even 12 feet per 

 mile, we still get the following result for a distance of 1000 miles, 



100 miles at 60 feet per mile 6,000 feet. 



900 ,, 12 ,, „ 10,800 „ 



1000 miles. 16,800 feet. 



which gives an average of nearly 17 feet per mile over the whole 

 length, and I see no reason for thinking a less slope at all probable. 

 Now the present culminating point of Scandinavia is SSM feet, and 

 only a very few of the mountain tops exceed 6000 feet ; we have 

 therefore a very strong presumption that the former height of that 

 land must have been vastly greater than it is now, and the same 

 conclusion will apply to the centres of glaciation in Canada and 

 Scotland. Supposing that in Scandinavia we place the centre of 

 radiation for the ice not in the Norwegian hills, but in the lower 

 ground to the eastward, still it will not materially affect the result, 

 for although we thereby shorten the length of the glacier, we lower 

 the present altitude of the point from which it had to start. The 

 probability, therefore, seems to be very great that at the commence- 

 ment of the Glacial period the altitude of Scandinavia was higher — 

 very much higher — than at present, and this conclusion is strongly 

 supported by other considerations of scarcely less weight. 



1. In the first place the whole sea-board of Norway is inter- 

 sected by long deep fjords, which have all the appearance of 

 being the sunken valleys of a submerged mountain-land that had 

 been deeply cut by rivers at a time when the country stood at a 

 far greater height above the sea. Christiania Fjord reaches a depth 

 of 1380 feet, Hardanger 2624, and Sogne Fjord no less than 

 4080 feet. Their sides are often very precipitous, and Sexe ^ tells 

 us that in the Hardanger Fjord, in fine calm weather, when the 

 water is very transparent, the head turns quite giddy on looking 

 over the side of a boat down these submarine cliffs. Probably few 

 will believe that glaciers could have eroded the hard crystalline rocks 

 of Norway to a depth of thousands of feet beneath the sea-level, or 

 could have cut them into such precipitous forms, for the action of a 

 glacier on its bed has a tendency to produce flowing or bowl-shaped 

 outlines. Moreover, the heaviest current of ice seems to have been 

 that which came down the Baltic, which is a shallow sea, the general 

 depth being only 40 to 60 fathoms. The probability, therefore, 

 seems to be that these fjords of Norway, like the canon of Colorado, 

 were cut by mountain-streams in pre-Glacial times when the land 

 stood at a much greater height, for how otherwise can we suppose 

 them to have been excavated ? The same observation will apply to 

 the sea-lochs which indent the west coast of Scotland and also to 

 the fjord latitudes of America, as Dana long ago pointed out. 



1 S. A. Sexe, Moerker, efter en listid i omegnen af Hardangerfjorden. 

 Christiania, 1866. 



