84 P. A. ØYEN. 



for in this last-mentioned year, Smith states that it had some- 

 what decreased. 



There are, however, some other phenomena here calling for 

 attention. In the Jotunheim we meet with local accounts of the 

 oscillation of two glaciers, the Storbræ in the Leirdal and the 

 Styggebræ in the Visdal, stating the position of those two gla- 

 ciers, as regards their ice -covered area, to have nearly corres- 

 ponded, during the first decade of the nineteenth century, with 

 a series of moraines, encircling at each of these two glaciers an 

 area now covered with morainic matter, erratic blocks and fluvio- 

 glacial gravel and sand. At the Storbræ we find the corresponding 

 terminal deposits to extend for a distance of nearly half a kilo- 

 metre in front of the glacier, and at the Styggebræ we find the 

 distance to be about three times that of the Storbræ. The facts 

 here stated acquire all the more general interest from the fact 

 that in the Jotunheim we meet with a long series of moraines 

 lying in a similar manner in front of our present glaciers. This 

 phenomenon is much more conspicuous on account of the remark- 

 able fact that within the external series, about half-way towards 

 the end of the glacier, we meet, as a rule, with another series 

 of moraines that are of special interest as a more general pheno- 

 menon. Besides these two principal series of moraines, we often 

 meet in the Jotunheim with several minor ones of a more local 

 character. According to the above-mentioned reports, and from 

 the geological facts, stated above, we are certainly justified in 

 regarding the external moraine series above referred to as marking 

 the position of the glaciers in the Jotunheim, not only during the 

 period of wet weather and low temperature in the begining of 

 the nineteenth century, but also during those periods of glacier 

 advance during the preceding century. We may, thus, draw a 

 double conclusion, first, that even here, the phase of oscillation 

 of the latter part of the eighteenth century has probably been 

 only slight, and secondly, that the great oscillation of glaciers 

 about the middle of the same century has mainly been a pheno- 



