APPEARANUES OF GLACIERS AND SNOW-FIELDS. 175 
Thad come. That this was formerly the case is shown by 
abundant evidences at every step of the day’s walk, and 
the latter part of yesterday’s. 
‘The soft, though sharp outline of the virgin snow, 
standing against the blue sky, just where it pours over the 
precipice, is very beautiful. There are no birds up here, 
no roaring torrent, no rustling of trees, no buzzing of 
insects; not even the ripple of a thin stream, as heard on 
the Swiss glaciers, but a silence that is almost absolute, 
and adds vastly to the effect of such a scene, 
‘The snow-plains, which are here seen bending over in 
cascades above the lake, are the northern terminations of 
the great table-land of snow forming the fond, or “Snee- 
fond,” of the Jostedals Breen, a great untrodden desert 
of perpetual snow and ice, extending for about fifty miles 
to the south-west, with a varying width, and covering 
altogether a space of about 400 square miles. Every 
valley of favourable configuration that branches from this 
great reservoir of ice is filled with a glacier or ice torrent, 
replacing the water torrents of the valleys that descend 
from the Dovre and other fjelds, that are not snow- 
covered. 
‘I now descended over similar ground to that on the 
opposite side of the pass. . . . I walked on over a 
wide field of glacier moraine, leading at last to the outlet 
of the Stigevand; a torrent of respectable dimensions 
which, fed by a succession of glaciers, grows to a river,* as 
it flows down the Jostedal. At the point where the stony 
fjeld narrows and descends to form the head of this valley 
the torrent makes a succession of falls over walls of piled- 
up boulders.’ i 
* The Stor-elv, or Large River, 
