APPEARANCES OF GLACIERS AND SNOW-FIELDS. 169 
the boulders and smaller stones have been deposited in the 
fields in former times, and we could trace, by the marks 
of the ice on the rocks, the course taken. But now stand- 
ing before the Buer-brae-en, we could ‘understand how 
valleys had been dug out of the solid rock by that most 
destructive form of water the glacier. The huge irresist- 
ible mass was still advancing slowly, and had been doing so 
for a longtime. My guide said it had advanced more than 
fifty feet since the previous year, driving everything before 
it. All along the base of the ice was a transverse ridge of 
earth in which fresh greensward and stones were mingled 
together, which the glacier pushed forward as it glided 
over the rocks. On the right was a huge mass of rock 
which had been tcrn apart by the pressure of the advanc- 
ing ice. The weight which had overcome this obstacle 
must have been enormous, for the evidence of such ter- 
rific force was before my eyes. Not even the solid moun- 
tain walls, composed of the hardest of our rocks, could 
arrest the forward -march of the terrible glacier. This 
block of granite, torn from the mountain side, was about 
twenty feet long and fifteen broad. It had been broken 
unevenly, and. was still covered with moss. A part of it 
was overlapped by the ice; and the upper stratum of the 
glacier having a stronger current than the lower would 
finally run over it, and hide it from view as the onward 
march continued; and when the glacier again retired the 
boulder would be deposited in some new resting place. 
The glacier came down a steep gorge leaping three dis- 
tinct ledges of rock, and it was crowded between solid 
walls not more than 250 to 300 yards wide towards its 
end. The moraines seen higher up on each side above 
were engulphed further down into deep crevasses formed 
by the pressure of the ice and ledges. On its left were 
towering mountains; Mount Reina being 5,210 feet above 
the sea, and the second highest point of the Folgefonn. 
The ice was of a magnificent blue; the cavern was small, 
but extremely beautiful ; and its stream was far from being 
as dirty as those of the glaciers of the Justedal. Lower 
