January 10, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



75 



1900, 1-61; German abstract, 160-170), Vogt 

 describes the leading features of a part of mid- 

 western Norway, including a typical portion 

 of the coast plain whose general occurrences 

 and origin by marine abrasion were first an- 

 nounced by Eeuseh in 1894, and whose forms 

 were further illustrated by Eichter (see 

 Science, June 26, 1896). Between latitudes 

 <33J° and 66J°, the coast plain, now much dis- 

 sected and mostly submerged, has a breadth 

 of about 45 kil., or a third of that of Nor- 

 way in this district. It bears some large un- 

 eonsumed eminences here and there. Its inner 

 border lies along a tolerably direct line at an 

 altitude of from 20 to 50 met., and is well 

 defined by the rather abrupt ascent to the 

 highlands whose altitude shows that some 400 

 met. of rock was worn away in abrading the 

 inner part of the ijlain. Further inland, the 

 highlands are too uneven to be regarded as 

 an uplifted peneplain; but they have been 

 heavily denuded, their summits are composed 

 •of their hardest rocks, and their summit 

 heights show a marked accordance with a 

 plane sloping seaward at an angle of 40'. 

 Belts of limestone have been worn down in 

 longitudinal valleys by which inland com- 

 munication is favored. Transverse valleys, 

 now occupied by fiords, lead to the coast. Ee- 

 turning to the coast plain, it slopes gently 

 westward, and as it gradually dips under the 

 sea thousands or tens of thousands of sker- 

 ries fringe the shore line. Its outer edge is 

 now at a depth of from 10 to 30 met., beyond 

 ■which the bottom descends more rapidly. The 

 slope of the plain is ascribed in part to post- 

 glacial tilting (2J')> in part to an original 

 -declivity due to abrasion as the land slowly 

 sank. The date of abrasion is given as pre- 

 glacial, and the fiords and other channels by 

 ■which the plain is intersected are ascribed 

 largely to glacial erosion acting on lines of 

 previously established valleys. The fiords 

 reach depths of from 400 to 600 met. beneath 

 the sea, or from 1,250 to 1,500 met. below the 

 adjoining highlands; their depth decreases 

 forward in the coast plains. The shore lines 

 (strandlinjen) that were cut during the post- 

 glacial submergence stand somewhat higher 



than the inner border of the abraded plain, 

 with which they should not be confused. 



SWEDISH GLACIAL LAKES. 



Hansen has shown that the shore lines of 

 extinct lakes occur in deep east-discharging 

 valleys that occupy a belt next east of the gen- 

 eral watershed of the Scandinavian highlands, 

 and that the barriers by which the lake waters 

 were held consisted of residual ice masses; 

 thus confirming the generalization that the 

 iceshed of the glacial period (as determined 

 by striations and boulders) lay somewhat east 

 of the ■watershed. A special account of some 

 of these lakes is given by Gavelin ('On the 

 glacial lakes in the upper part of the Time 

 river valley.' Bull. Geol. Inst. Univ. Upsala, 

 IV., 1900, 231-242, map). One of these lakes 

 in lat. 66° was over 100 kil. long, with a width 

 up to 9 kil., and a depth of 150 or 200 met. 

 Its outlet was westward across a pass at an 

 elevation of 534 met. Wave-cut terraces in 

 till and stream-built deltas of gravel are trace- 

 able round the shore line, which rises eastward 

 with a gradient of about 1 : 2,000. A higher 

 water level is found at altitudes varying be- 

 tween 700 and 760 met. Many other shore 

 lines of this kind await the attention of the 

 explorer. W. M. Davis. 



BOTANICAL NOTES. 



POPULARIZING FORESTRY INFORMATION. 



Mr. Abbot Kinney, of Los Angeles, Cali- 

 fornia, has rendered forestry a good service 

 by bringing out a pretty book entitled, 'Forest 

 and Water,' in which he discusses in a non- 

 technical way many things which bear upon 

 our forests and their management as well as 

 their mismanagement. In a series of short 

 chapters the author discusses enthusiastically 

 and earnestly, if not always learnedly, many 

 things pertaining to trees and their environ- 

 ment. Thus he takes up the origin and con- 

 tinuance of forests, forest fires, pasturage in 

 forests, need of government control, forests 

 in relation to torrents, study of the pines, 

 cedars and other trees, some relations be- 

 tween forests and water supply, forest reser- 

 voirs, etc. In speaking of forest fires the 

 author says, "Fire is more dreaded than any 



