104 SCANDINAVIA. 



seas, these long and alternating nights and days contribute to impart to the 

 life of the land its grand and stern aspect, which so endears it to the people. 



The form of the Norwegian seaboard aids not a little in maintaining the 

 warmth of the land. The temperature of the fiords to their lowest depths is 

 hio-her than that of the ambient atmosphere. The researches made by Mohn 

 show that these basins are filled with comparatively warm waters, 24° higher 

 than the surface air in January.* This is due to their formation, causing 

 them to communicate over raised ledges with the ocean, whence they conse- 

 quently receive warm south-west currents only. The deep waters of the Faroer 

 and Iceland seas under the same latitudes have a temperature below freezing 

 point, whereas the fiords never freeze except along the shores farthest removed 

 from the high seas. Thus the whole Norwegian seaboard is, so to say, furnished 

 with a vast heating apparatus by these outer reservoirs filled with waters several 

 degrees above the normal temperature. 



The thermometric régime of these waters presents remarkable contrasts with 

 the seasons. In summer and autumn the temperature falls from the surface 

 downwards, whereas in winter the heat rises gradually with the depth, a result 

 due to the atmosphere. In summer the air is warmer than the surface waters, 

 which it consequently heats. This heat is transmitted downwards, but very 

 slowly, while the colder and heavier zones remain below. In winter the surface 

 is rapidly cooled by the colder atmosphere, the lower zones remaining unchanged. 

 But from the surface downwards the natural sinking of the cold strata produces 

 displacements of the liquid layers, which regulate the series of temperatures. 

 The thermal curves for each season figured on Mohn's ingenious charts oscillate 

 on either side of a fixed standard, occurring at about 600 feet below the surface. 

 Nevertheless the influence of the warm waters would be very slight but for the 

 warm south-west and south winds prevailing on the Norwegian seaboard, Ifc is 

 under their influence that the Scandinavian isothermals are diverted northwards, 

 following the coast-line almost inversely to their normal direction. 



Still there is a certain alternation in the general atmospheric movement. 

 The prevailing winds in winter, and even in spring and autumn, are breezes 

 blowing from all the valleys and fiords towards the surface of the sea, whose 

 temperature is always above freezing point. But in summer the reverse takes 

 place, the winds setting from the ocean towards the heated regions of the interior. 

 Thus the temperature of the sea and coast lands becomes modified from month 

 to month. Ihe winds passing over the inland snow-fields cool the waters of the 

 seaboard, which preserve their normal temperature only where the influence of 

 those winds is unfelt. In their alternating movement from winter to summer 

 and summer to winter the winds are deflected regularly with the coast-line. In 

 winter they set northwards, thus aiding vessels coasting from the Naze to North 



* Temperature of the fiords and the atmosphere : — 



Atmos^phere. Atmosphere. 



Deep Water. Mean. January. Deep Water. Mean. January. 



SkagerEak . 41" 45° 33" Trondhjera-fiord . . 44" 41^ 27° 



Hardanger-fiord 43'' 4.5° 32° Vest-fiord . . .43° 37° 25° 



Sogne-fiord . 43° 45° 31° Varan irer-fiord . . 3S° 30° 14° 



