3:24 Prof. Frankland on the Physical Cause 



to the sea, and did not visit the coast as floating masses from the 

 polar regions. I must not omit to state, however, that on this 

 point Forbes inclines to a different opinion. He says*, " I can- 

 not pronounce on the direction of the stria?, which I could not 

 land to examine. It rather appeared to me, however, that on 

 the coast at least the direction of friction, marked by the stos 

 and lee Seite, was parallel to the coast and from north to south." 



However this may be with regard to the coast, the exploration 

 of several of the fjords convinced me that the ancient glaciers 

 followed tracks leading them from the gathering-basins of the 

 mountains by the nearest available route to the sea. The Hard- 

 anger, Romsdal, Trondlijem, Namsen, and Salten fjords exhibit 

 everywhere the most unmistakeable evidence that they were once 

 filled with vast glaciers, to which, in fact, those fjords without 

 doubt mainly owe their existence. The Hardanger, with its 

 modern glaciers which stream down from the neve of the Folge 

 Fond, is a magnificent example of the channel of an ancient ice- 

 river. Wherever its rocky shores are bare, they are scored with the 

 characteristic flutings ; the position of the latter, and the freedom 

 from abrasion of those surfaces which are precipitously inclined 

 towards the mouth of the fjord, plainly proclaim the direction in 

 which this gigantic glacier moved. In the Romsdal, at the head 

 of the fjord of that name, the evidence of former glacial action 

 is perhaps still more striking, because it concentrates itself more 

 closely around the traveller. As far as the eye can define, up 

 the precipitous walls of this grand ravine, the rocks are grooved 

 and planed down by the action of moving ice; and immense 

 gneiss blocks which now lie at the bottom of the gorge, but whose 

 former position can be traced to near the summit of the preci- 

 pices, show by the smoothed and streaked character of their 

 formerly exposed sides, either that this gorge was once completely 

 filled with ice, or that it was gradually scooped out by a glacier 

 of more moderate thickness. 



It was natural that these accumulating evidences of a former 

 condition of the surface of our planet, so different from that 

 which now obtains, should call forth various hypotheses intended 

 to account for a thermal state which permitted the occupation, 

 by such vast masses of ice, of tracts of land which now frequently 

 yield rich pasturage and luxuriant crops. It was suggested 

 by Fourier that the temperature of space is not uniform ; and 

 that our solar system, in performing the proper motion among 

 the stars which is believed to belong to it, sometimes passes 

 through regions much colder than others. According to this 

 hypothesis, the glacial epoch occurred during the passage of our 

 system through a comparatively cold portion of space. Some 

 * Norway and its Glaciers, p. 46. 



