556 Professor E. Hull — On the Norwegian Fjords. 



2. General form of the fjord-heds. — The iiumei'ous soundings 

 laid down on the Admiralty charts of 1865 and 1886 enable us to 

 determine with accuracy the form of the submerged portions of the 

 fjords. Using these soundings, and by their aid laying down the 

 isobathic contours, we arrive at results sufficiently remarkable. In 

 the case of the Hardanger, the Feris, the Sogne, the Nord, the 

 Vartdals, and the Stor Fjords with their branches, we find that 

 shortly after passing the entrance from the outer sea, and the chain 

 of islands which fringes the coast of the mainland, they rapidly 

 descend to great depths, which are continuous for long distances 

 inland, and then gradually become shallower toward the upper limits, 

 where they pass into river valleys characterized by terminal moraines 

 of ancient glaciers, or old sea terraces. In carrying out the mapping 

 of the contours the author has adopted the following soundings : — 



(1) Those of the 100-fathom contour (600 feet). 



(2) „ „ 200 „ „ (1,200 feet). 



(3) „ „ 400 „ „ (2,400 feet). 



(4) „ „ 600 „ „ (3,600 feet). 



The floor of the Sogne Fjord descends to even greater depths than 

 the last of these, viz. 661 fathoms (3,966 feet), which is reached in 

 the case of this fjord at a distance of about 25 miles from the entrance. 

 At the entrance itself the depth seldom exceeds 100 fathoms 

 (600 feet), and is generally less ; but once the deep water is reached 

 there is little change of level for long distances. As regards the 

 cross-section of the principal fjords, a glance at the charts shows that 

 they retain the form of narrow channels with little variation in 

 breadth, receiving tributaries on either hand and bounded by steep 

 or precipitous walls of rock ; as in the case of the valleys of which 

 they are only prolongations under the surface of the sea. 



3. When endeavouring to account for the peculiar form of the 

 fjords and the depth of their floors over the central portions we must 

 not forget that these old river valleys were the channels of great 

 glaciers during the post-Pliocene or Glacial period, and that glacial 

 erosion has contributed to the deepening process. Some Norwegian 

 geologists, such as Hansen,^ attribute the great disparity of the depth 

 of the fjords at the inner and outer stages of their course to this 

 deepening of the original channels by glacier erosion on the one 

 hand, and to the piling up of enormous masses of moraine matter at 

 the entrance on the other. To the latter cause the author fully assents ; 

 but he is doubtful whether glacier erosion has had the efi'ect of adding 

 many hundreds of feet to the depth of the original floor of the valleys. 

 But leaving this question, we have to consider a second problem : 

 namely, by what means did the original rivers empty themselves 

 into the ocean before the Glacial period, when there was neither 

 deepening of the floor by glacial erosion nor shallowing by moraine 

 matter? Previous to the Glacial epoch the rivers must, in the 



' "Norway," edited by Dr. Sten Konow and Karl Fischer, May, 1900. Translated 

 -by .1. C. Christie and Miss Muir, and others. 



