104 PORMATION OF SUBALPINE FLATS. 



undergone any of these natural top dressings 

 for ages, they are generally so very soft and 

 slushy, that in walking you go up to the knees 

 at every step. The brief Arctic summer is 

 evidently insufficient to dry the ground from 

 the enormous quantity of water with which it 

 is saturated by the winter's snow. The water 

 in these bays is generally very muddy, from 

 being so heavily charged with sediment washed 

 oflP the hills by the melting snow, and they 

 are unquestionably becoming shallowed very 

 rapidly. This is a process which, no doubt, is 

 taking place more or less all over the world, and 

 by which all subalpine flats and valleys have 

 been formed already ; but there is no country 

 which I have ever visited, or of which I have 

 ever read, in which it can be observed to be 

 actually happening so conspicuously and so 

 rapidly as in Spitzbergen, and more particularly 

 around the two gulfs of Stour Eiord and Deeva 

 Bay : the actual creation of flats and valleys by 

 the processes of denudation of the mountains, 

 and deposition of the sediment, is there laid 

 bare to the beholder so plainly, that " he who 

 runs may read." If there still exists any one 

 who doubts the power of present causes to re- 

 model the surface of the earth, I should 



