Prof. J. W. Spencer — Glacier-erosion in Norioay. 171 



provided it be sufficiently liigli, flows over upon itself, yet when the 

 sheet is no higher than the barrier, the lateral thrust may jDUsh it up 

 somewhat. The best example of the consequences of such a con- 

 dition is to be seen at Svartisen glacier, at the head of Holandsfjord, 

 which descends to within 50 feet of the sea, where it ends in a 

 morainic lake of considerable size, the noi'thern side of which is filled 

 with ice. The water of the lake rises, in part, to the level of 

 the ice, or over it, where the waves of the lake are depositing sand 

 upon its surface. Part of the ice is not less than 25 feet thick, 

 and most of it is probably double that thickness. Some of the strata 

 of the ice are pushed up and rest at 5° from the horizontal. But 

 the interesting observations are at the end of the glacier, where it 

 impinges against the morainic barrier. Being iinable to advance, the 

 lateral pressure has forced up an anticlinal ridge, or rather dome, in 

 the ice, to a height of 15 feet, along whose axis there has been a 

 fracture and fault. Upon this uplifted dome rests the undisturbed 

 sand stratified perfectly conformable to the surface which was 

 formerly just below the level of the lake. As the ice about the line 

 of fracture melts, the sand falls over and leaves a sand cone, of which 

 there were examples, one at the end of the lake, and two in the 

 centre, but the nuclei of the mounds were of solid ice. By this 

 lifting process, pockets of loose clayey sand were thrown on top of 

 the morainic matter, producing thus the appearance of having been 

 ploughed up by the glacier, to even several yards beyond its termin- 

 ation. 



14. Nowhere is there apparently more ploughing action, and yet 

 little or none to be seen, than at the Buarbrge, which is advancing 

 rapidly against a high lateral moraine. There is a large ridge 

 of stone upon a thin snout of the glacier, just as if the ice 

 were pushing under the boulders or earth, which, however, it 

 is not doing. The glacier has a steep convex margin, from 20 to 

 40 feet high, with many blocks and boulders upon it. These become 

 detached, and rolling down upon the lower tongues of ice, leave a 

 deep trough between the ridges thus produced and the side of the 

 glacier, and delay the melting of the layer of ice beneath, which is 

 too thin to do any undermining of the moraine. 



15. An excellent illustration of a glacier advancing, without any 

 ploughing action, over a moraine, and at the same time levelling it 

 into a sort of ground moraine, was seen at the Suphellebrte. Here 

 the glacier was moving up the slight elevation or moraine produced 

 by tlie early summer retreat of the glacier, although advancing again 

 in July. The lower surfaces of the ice tongues were furrowed by the 

 loose stones of the soft incoherent water- soaked moraine, into which 

 one's foot would sink when stepping upon it. The moraine was 

 being levelled by the constant dripping of the water from the whole 

 under sui-faces of the advancing glacier. 



16. This glacier of Suphelle is the most remarkable of its kind, 

 being a glacier remanie. From the Jiistedalsfond, which, near the 

 head of Fjserlandfjord, is 3000 to 4000 feet high, the clear bluish 

 ice and the consolidated snow fall over a precipice of dark rocks for 



