HANGING VALLEYS 



419 



This is in contrast to the other hanging valleys of the region. All the 

 others have gravel filling for floor. 



PRAESTEDAL 



This has a strong notch cut back by its stream to a valley floor 2,000 

 feet above the sea. It opens on an amphitheater at Invik on the fiord 

 about 7 miles west of Loen. Its floor extends 3 or 4 miles from the lip 

 to head, in a wall of rock under Cecilienkrone. There is no glacier in the 

 valley— only the botners that have burrowed into its wall, high up on 

 the south side. Under these descend long talus slopes to the boggy 

 meadow of the valley floor. The point where the stream leaves the 

 upper valley was apparently a line of old gravel moraine which laked the 

 upper valley and brought about its filling until the moraine is fairly 

 buried. Along the crest of this moraine now stands a line of saeters or 

 summer-pasture dwellings. The surface of the valley is a pure red peat, 

 which colors all the small streams strongly. The main river has cut 

 through it and flows beautifully clear on a bed of gravel. 



The amphitheater at Invik, on which Praestedal opens, has several 

 distinct terraces, the highest about 500 feet above the sea. In this valley, 

 too, the only ledge is that revealed deep in the cut made by the stream. 

 The valley does not head toward a continuous upland, but toward the 

 deep Olden valley, hardly a mile distant from its head. It is difficult to 

 regard it as a tributary valley to the Northfiord from this fact, that it 

 does not lead toward it from a possible neve field. 



The most striking hanging valleys of the region are the three on the 

 nortlieast side of the valley of Loen betAveen Loen and Bjz(dal. Of these 

 Tjugedal overhangs the 140-foot terrace of Loen and the valleys of 

 Brengsnaes and Hogrending (B and H on figure 2) overhang the Loen 

 lake. They open out on the steep valley wall at elevations of about 

 1,800 feet. 



VALLEYS OYER BRENGSNAES AND HOGRENDING 



These were only seen from below in repeated trips up and down the 

 lake, and once from a point about 1,700 feet up on the opposite valley 

 wall. They attract attention by the volume of water that they send 

 down the steep cliffs. To judge from these distant views, both have their 

 floors filled with gravel, from which rise long slopes of gravel-like talus. 

 The streams flow in notches in these gravel floors. From the opposite 

 wall I estimated the elevation of the Brengsnaes valley at 1,900 feet, that 

 at Hogrending at 1,800. To judge from the map and what can be seen 

 from below, which is not, of course, a satisfactory way to study such 

 forms, the two are good illustrations of hanging valleys that have orig- 



