Probable Amount of former Glaciation of Norway. 139 



If the time had not been short, all soft rocks in the South of 

 England would have been planed down to one gently undulating 

 surface like the plains of Russia and Siberia. Such Tundra- con- 

 ditions may have occurred more than once. 



2. " Probable Amount of former Glaciation of Norway, as demon- 

 strated by the present condition of Kocks upon and near the Western 

 Coast." By W. F. Stanley, Esq., F.G.S. 



The observations on which this paper are based were made in 

 June last, during a voyage along the west coast of Norway. Inland 

 conditions were also noted in the Hardanger and Sogne Fjords, and 

 a few trips up some of the valleys enabled these inland observations 

 to be further extended. The author limited his work to searching 

 for outline evidence of ice-action. The aspect of the coast for 

 hundreds of miles consecutively has a uniform character of jagged 

 and pointed rocks nearly to the sea-level. At the mouths of the 

 fjords the rocks are more rounded, particularly at heights less than 

 100 feet. Within the Arctic Circle the Swartisen glacier reaches 

 nearly to the sea, and here the rocks are more rounded. 



He exhibited sketches showing the characteristic forms of the 

 rocks, and concluded from a study of these that ice had never prevailed 

 along the entire western coast of Norway, neither had inland ice of 

 any considerable thickness flowed over this coast in sufficient volume 

 to wear off the points of the sharply fractured granite. Even the 

 rocks below 100 feet are not more worn than is sometimes the case 

 in tropical climates. The " shark's teeth" of the Lofotens have not 

 been planed down, nor is there any vestige of the great ice- sheet of 

 our text -books within the Arctic Circle. Even in the fjords there 

 is no evidence of ice-action until we arrive at the head, where it is 

 very evident. There can be no better demonstration of the extent 

 of former glaciation than in the Romsdal valley, where the line of 

 the worn base extends as high up the rock as 600 feet. He also 

 instanced the principal glaciers of the Folge Fjord, now about 7 miles 

 from the open water of the fjord, though formerly within 1| mile. 

 The angular character of the low rocky island in front of Odde 

 shows that it cannot have advanced further. 



The Author concluded that at no period within geologically recent, 

 say Tertiary times, has ice extended much further than at present. 

 Seeing that the morainic matter now in the valleys has been derived 

 from the hills, there must formerly have been a greater extent of land 

 above the snow-line, and this would cause a former extension of 

 glaciers without resort to any extraneous theory or change of cli- 

 mate. The Great Ice Age has left no trace on the Norwegian 

 littoral. 



March 23.— Prof. J. W. Judd, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. "Notes on the Structures and Relations of some of the older 

 Rocks of Brittany." By T. G. Bonney, D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S., Pro- 

 fessor of Geology in University College, London, and Fellow of St. 

 John's College, Cambridge. 



These notes are the results of a visit to some of the more in- 



