1882.] 43 Davis. 



may say perpendicular, on the sides which hang over the valleys, not only 

 in the valleys which are high above the level of the sea, but in those from 

 the bottoms of which the waters run into the Norwegian Fjords. Ice or 

 glaciers, by their immense expanding powers, must beyond doubt have pro- 

 duced this change in their original form, from this circumstance, that they 

 were continually sliding downwards from the higher mountains to the lower 

 districts, and by this progressive motion carried with them the masses of 

 stone which they had torn from the mountains." (On the Geological His- 

 tory of the Earth, Edinb. New Phil. Mag., ir, 1826-27, 107-121. I have 

 not seen the original article of which this is a translation.) 



R. Brown ranks glaciers as of much importance in forming fjords in val- 

 leys previously begun by dislocation or water erosion. (Geogr. Soc. Journ. 

 xxxix, 1869, 121-131 and xli, 1871, 348-360.) 



A. Helland considers cirques and fjords largely the effect of glacial ero- 

 sion, but his argument is chiefly that these forms are found only in glaciated 

 regions,-and that they cannot be produced by ordinary erosive agents. (Die 

 glacial Bildung der Fjorde und Alpenseen in Norwegen, Pogg. Ann. cxlvi, 

 1872, 538-562 ; On the Ice-Fjords of North Greenland and on the Forma- 

 tion of Fjords, Lakes and Cirques in Norway and Greenland, Geol. Soc. 

 Journ. xxxiii, 1877, 142-146.) He accepts the idea suggested by Haast 

 (Geol. Soc. Journ., xxi, 1865, 130) that glacial action is strongest near the 

 end, where reaction from the terminal moraine causes greater pressure on 

 the valley bottom ; an idea that lacks confirmation. 



A. Penck follows Helland in this question; he neatly compares the 

 Norwegian fjords, once cut by ice, to the Wadies of the Sahara, once cut 

 by water, for in both regions the cutting agent has disappeared by cli- 

 matic change. (Norwegens Oberflache : Glaciale Bodengestaltung ; Aus- 

 land 1882, 190-194, 348-352, 369-373). 



J. F. Campbell (Frost and Fire, Philadelphia, 1865) attributed most 

 glacial action to floating bergs, at a time of submergence ; in the same work 

 he suggested a peculiar alphabet of signs to represent various effects of ero- 

 sion. Later, writing of glacial scratches, he said that these " hair lines, 

 Irish glens and Norwegian fjords are all grooves of one pattern, though 

 upon different scales. If ice made one set of grooves, bigger ice might 

 make the biggest." He believed then that a crust of ice extended from the 

 North Pole southward to the latitude of" Washington in America, and as 

 far as Greece on this side of the Atlantic, and probably united East and 

 West round the world," and "reached nearly to the Equator." (On the 

 Glaciation of Ireland, Geol. Soc. Journ., xxix, 1873, 221.) Finally after a 

 trip round the world, he concludes that there was no polar ice-cap ; " that 

 vast sheets of polar ice did not climb over the Alps, the Caucasus, the 

 Himalayas and the Rocky Mountains, . . . polar glaciation and the records 

 of it belong to the Atlantic Basin." " I am prepared to maintain that . . . 



