172 -P'^'o/! J. W. Bpencer — Glacier-erosion in Norway. 



about 1000 feet, and at about 1500 to 2000 feet above tbe sea 

 re-form into a glacier extending down into and nearly across the 

 valley of Fjeerland, for a distance of somewhat less than a mile, to 

 a level of only 175 feet above the sea. The glacier is much, crevassed 

 and covered and filled with debris. In fact, it is the most dirt-laden 

 glacier known — not excepting the Aar glacier in the Alps. These 

 materials are wholly derived from tlie side of the mountain, and 

 brought down by frosts, and more largely by the fall of ice as it 

 dashes from one frost-cracked rock to another. One of these great 

 ice avalanches I witnessed from the other side of the valley — fully a 

 mile distant. Thousands of tons must have fallen at this time, but 

 as the ice fell from rock to rock, it was converted into what, seen 

 from the distance, appeared to be white dust. 



17. There are no considerable streams from the upper glacier, but 

 from the melting ice, below the fall, the volume of water laden with 

 mud is large. As this glacier is not ploughing up but levelling 

 down the inequalities of its bed of loose materials, we cannot sup- 

 pose that the mud comes from any other than the dirt upon and 

 within the ice, and that obtained by the dripping water as it levels 

 the terminal moraine. This is only one of the examples everywhere 

 to be seen showing the erroneous estimate of glacier-erosion, when 

 based upon the amount of mud carried down by the streams flowing 

 from the glaciers, for the debris is brought upon their surfaces by 

 other than grinding action, and, as far as obsei'vation goes, it is not 

 derived from beneath them, at least, to any great extent. 



18. Although I have seen some of the sharp angles of the rocks at 

 2000 — 3000 feet above the sea, along the sides of the valleys, more 

 or less rounded, yet the inequalities of the faces have not been 

 generally removed by erosion of any kind. At numerous places in 

 Norway as well as in other countries, hummocks of rocks rise above 

 or out of the glaciers, as the ice flows around them at lower levels — 

 these channels having been deepened not by glaciers but by sub- 

 glacial streams. 



19. Nowhere are the rocJies moutonnees so abundant as on the coast 

 of Norway. In their more perfect form, they are not extensively 

 developed along the coast more than 250 feet above the sea. At 

 higher altitudes they are best seen about glacier-falls, farther up the 

 valleys. But since the Pleistocene days, the coast has been raised 

 several hundred feet, at least. The form of the hummocks is pre- 

 cisely like what may be seen in South-Eastern Missouri, and other 

 states south of the line of northern drift, or like those described in 

 Ceylon, Brazil, and other tropical countries, to which only are added 

 the scratches. The forms of the hummocks must be principally 

 attributed to the atmospheric erosion of the crystalline rocks, where 

 the debris has been swept away by currents or by ice. We see them 

 more frequently swept clean upon the coast of either cold or warm 

 countries than in the interior, where the currents are only those from 

 rain or local glaciers, for even the sweeping beneath the glaciers is 

 principally effected by dripping waters or streams. Prof. Kjerulf, 

 of the University of Christiania, than whom there is no better 



