NORWEGIAN GLACIERS. 101 



previously, is a most interesting phenomenon. We are therefore 

 justified in regarding this increase as only a light aberration. It 

 is, however, very interesting to compare the oscillation of the 

 Glacier of Boium of late years with the contemporaneous con- 

 dition of the small glaciers and snow-fields of the mountains in 

 the neighbourhood of the Jostedalsbræ. According to statements 

 made by Mr. Mundal in 1897, these glaciers and snow-fields 

 were then regularly diminishing. In 1899, however, he states 

 that they had somewhat increased during the last two years; 

 and, in September last he informed me, that the small glaciers 

 and snow-fields of these elevated regions have somewhat decrea- 

 sed during the present year, 1900. When compared with the 

 two preceding years, they show a condition of retreat; but they 

 are far from having re-occupied their position of 1897, as a great 

 abundance of snow still remains from the two years of heavy 

 downfalls of snow 1898 and 1899. 



Another veiy interesting phenomenon, to be mentioned in 

 connection with the oscillation of these glaciers, is the occur- 

 rence of an ice-caldron or a lakelet on the summit of the Joste- 

 dalsbræ, just between the Valley of Langedalen and the Valley 

 of Stardalen. This ice-caldron, in the summer of 1898, was more 

 than thirty metres in length by about twenty metres in breadth, 

 and was at that time half-filled with water. In the summer of 

 1899, however, according to statements made by Mr. Mundal, 

 everything here was covered with snow, and in that season, as 

 well as in the summer of the present year, he says, the abun- 

 dance of snow was great enough to allow of a passage up the 

 steep ice-wall towards the Valley of Stardalen. Mr. Mundal 

 further states that in the summer of 1900, only the basin itself 

 was to be traced, but the water of the lakelet had altogether 

 disappeared, probably, through some crevices in the ice. 



The Glacier of Briksdal as well as the glaciers of Melke- 

 vold and Aabrække certainly passed through a period of decrease 

 about the middle of the nineteenth century. De Seue writes ; 



