AND CIRQUES IN NORWAY AND GREENLAND. 175 



fjords, a depth of 200 metres is found at some distance from the 

 shore ; and in the German Ocean soundings of more than 100 metres 

 are very rare. A few examples from the largest fjords of Xorway 

 will suffice to prove this. The depth of the Sogne Fjord in the inner 

 part increases to 1244 metres ; at its mouth, where it joins the sea, 

 this has decreased to 158 metres. The depth of the sea 100 kilo- 

 metres from land is 124 metres. The greatest depth of the Har- 

 danger Fjord is 800 metres, while the depth of the sea 100 kilo- 

 metres from land is 150 metres. The greatest depth of the Xord 

 Fjord is 565 metres, while at the ahove distance from land the sea 

 is also 150 metres deep. In the tributary fjords of the Stor Fjord 

 the depth amounts to 721 metres, while the sea 50 kilometres from 

 the mouth is only 100 metres deep. Some fjords along the coast of 

 Romsdalen are continued for several miles out to sea as strongly 

 marked deeps, much shallower, however, than in the inner parts ; 

 and in front of these large quantities of stones and sand extend, the 

 edge of which is well known to fishermen by the name Storeggen 

 (the large edge). With a view of examining the sea-bottom along 

 the Norwegian coast, I made a survey opposite to the mouths of the 

 fjords, and dredged up stones. At the mouths of those which I ex- 

 amined I found a great quantity of stones of different kinds mixed 

 with clay, such as varieties of granites, gneiss, quartzose-slates, clay- 

 slates, mica-schists — rocks, on the whole, well known as constituting 

 the sides of the fjords of Western Norway. Some flints, however, in- 

 dicated the occurrence of the Cretaceous formation, which has not 

 been observed in the fjords. A great number of pieces of different 

 kinds of rock, of various sizes and with rounded edges, occurring 

 at the mouths of fjords once filled with glaciers, and in the places 

 where their depths are decreasing, seems to prove a glacial forma- 

 tion of moraines under the sea. This view is confirmed by analo- 

 gous facts. The row of moraines mentioned above, on the west side 

 of the Christiania Fjord, runs at last out to sea, and continues as 

 shoals, which in some places emerge as islands, as in the case of 

 Jomfruland Island. As rows of moraines occur on the land with 

 lakes behind them, so in the sea, from the fjord of Langesund 

 towards the town of Arendal, rows of shoals lie in front of the rock- 

 basins of the fjord. If, for example, Norway were to rise 400 

 metres, the shoals along the west coast and on the bottom of the 

 German Ocean would probably appear as moraines and plains of 

 glacial formation, widely extended in front of the lake-basins of the 

 fjords. 



Phenomena similar to the above are repeated in other countries. 

 The fjords of Scotland are shallower at their mouths than within, 

 and if the land rose would become lakes*. The soundings along 

 the coast of Greenland are little known ; but it is evident, from the 

 few observations which exist, that the same peculiar configuration 

 of the sea-bed would here also be brought to light if the land rose. 

 The depth of the Jakobshavn ice-fjord, according to the Green- 

 landers, is about 390 metres ; that of the Torsukatak 346 metres. 

 * Cf. Geikie, ' The Great Ice Age,' p. 519. 



