232 



and situated just at the spot of the former mouth of the fjord^ 

 where, theoretically, one would expect to find it. Above this 

 rock barrier the valley opens out abruptly, and the river runs 

 in many shallow branches over a broad sandy level plain, 

 probably a deep, now fllled-up hollow. Above this again the 

 side walls approach each other, whereupon the real river valley 

 begins, closed farther inland by a not inconsiderable glacier 

 which with a broad tongue shoots down into a hollow between 

 higher mountain masses (cfr. fig. 32). The walls of the valley 

 here are steep, though scarcely insurmountable, and practically 

 free from weathering débris; they show the characteristic form 

 of valleys that have got their shape independent of the activity 

 of running water (cirques, glacier valleys and fjords), and which 

 has been called the U-form, though a better comparison would 

 perhaps be with the parabolic. Especially fine here is the 

 contrast between these valley-walls and the flat rounded table- 

 land on the heights of the hills, and it seems curious that 

 both should have arisen through the same kind of ice-erosion. 

 To explain this we must assume that the valley in its origin is 

 older than the ice-erosion, and the contrast must be ascribed to 

 the great difference in the activity of the ice in a narrow cleft 

 or on an open plateau-land and on the top of the hills. 



The southern valley in general shows great resemblance 

 with the one described, but does not offer the same interest^). 



On the other hand the tops of the lower, western Nunataks, 

 surrounded by glaciers and masses of ice, which I had an op- 

 portunity of examining more closely in the heart of these val- 

 leys, are quite interesting. As far as i could push forward 1 

 found that they still contained traces of a plateau shape, which 

 however when viewed from a height showed itself to be con- 

 siderably affected by an incipient corrie formation, which has 



') On Koch's map one can see in this valley, as well as in another im- 

 mediately N. of it, a broad lake-area, corresponding to the wide plain, 

 filtered by the numerous river-branches that 1 described above. 



