274 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



not trend horizontally like the strand-line itself, but dipped down 

 towards the opening of the fiord in the same direction as the 

 general glaciation of the hill-slope. It was only at the lowest 

 level close to the water that a second system of horizontally- 

 disposed striae was observed. I confess it is difficult to conceive 

 how a glacier could excavate horizontal benches in a hill-side ; 

 but, admitting that it could, surely some of the strand-lines occur 

 in positions opposed to the direction followed by the ice-flow ? 

 I have not visited Norway for many years, and my examination 

 of the old strand -lines was very cursory, but if I remember 

 rightly some which I saw between Tromsoe and Hammerfest 

 ran along the coast-lands that faced the open sea. Those, at all 

 events, described by Mohn as occurring on the west coast of 

 Kvaloe, it is hard to believe could owe their origin to glacial 

 erosion. Again, if such were their origin, we might expect to 

 meet with similar horizontal rock-ledges in all mountain-tracts 

 which have in former times been severely glaciated, as in the 

 Alps, the Pyrenees, and the mountains of our own islands. 



Mr. Karl Pettersen has advanced yet another view. In his 

 opinion the rock-ledges have been cut out by the scouring action 

 of floating-ice carried along by tidal currents. To this theory 

 also objections arise. Strong currents would probably flow 

 between the islands just as they do at present, but surely in a 

 quiet fiord — a regular cul de sac — such scouring action would 

 not be at all likely to take place. I might refer, for example, to 

 the strand-lines in the Jokulsfjord, which I examined in com- 

 pany with Mr. Whitaker and my brother, and which the latter 

 has suggested might " have been due in large measure to the 

 effects of the freezings and thawings along the old 'ice-foot,' 

 and to the rasping and grating of coast-ice." 1 



I feel that I should not be justified in expressing any positive 

 opinion on a question, for the satisfactory solution of which, 

 perhaps, more exact and exhaustive data are required ; but so 

 far as I am able to follow the evidence it seems to point, first, 

 to the marine origin of the " gamle strandlinier," and, second, to 



i Proc. Royal Soc. Edin., 1866, p. 548. 



