90 p. A. ØYEN. 



tance of the moraine from the glacier to he „600 or 700 yards." 

 If we are to rely upon the figures given hy Durocher and Forbes 

 as regards the Glacier of Berset, the decrease of that glacier 

 during the six years 1845—1851, has been rather rapid; in the 

 words of Forbes: „The main glacier, which is now 900 yards 



within its moraines of 1742 was estimated 



by M. Durocher in 1845, to be only 600 or 700 yards distant 

 from them." Rough as these figures are, they indicate a de- 

 crease of no less than about two hundred metres during the 

 few years mentioned above. It is, however, interesting to meet, 

 even in Jostedal, in the very neighbourhood of the glaciers just 

 mentioned, with some phenomena likely to draw attention to 

 the fact that even during this period, diversity in the oscilla- 

 tion of glaciers is stated to have occurred. Naumann, for ins- 

 tance, about 1820, states with regard to the Glacier of Trange- 

 dal : „An ihm sah ich keine Spur von Zurückschreiten, denn 

 Vegetation und Eis grenzen an einander, und die Morainen liegen 

 dicht vor des Bräens Ende." And, in the middle of the same 

 century, Forbes states that the Glacier of Trangedal „shows no 

 marks of having diminished." Forbes himself was also keenly 

 sensible of this difference, „indeed," he says, „these oscillations 

 evidently depend sometimes on causes so local that we cannot 

 be surprised at the want of a general coincidence." 



It is not, however, only in the Jostedal that we meet with 

 records of the decrease of glaciers at this period. As regards the 

 Folgefon there is a statement as to the oscillation of the Glacier 

 of Bondhus namely that in 1845 this glacier had considerably 

 decreased, large frontal masses having fallen. 



We find, moreover, more records of a retreat of glaciers 

 immediately previous to the year 1850, or in other words towards 

 the end of the first half of the nineteenth century. In looking 

 over those statements we get a marked impression that a period 

 of wet and cold, accompanied by glacier advance, has prevailed 

 during the middle of that century. 



