PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCTETT, 



83 



February 23, 1337. 



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



Edward Bickerton Milward, Esq., Grube Wohlfahrt, Hellenthal, 

 Eifel, Germany, was elected a Fellow of the Society. 



The List of Donations to the Library was read. 



The following communications were read : — 



1 . " On the Origin of dry Chalk Valleys and of Coombe Rock." 

 By Clement Reid, Esq., F.G.S. 



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

 strated by the present condition of Rocks upon and near the western 

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



[Abstract.] 



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. 



The Author exhibited sketches showing the characteristic forms of 

 tho rocks, and concluded from a study of these that ice had never pre- 

 vailed 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 upon the coast of Norway. 

 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 GOO feet 10 miles inland. He also instanced the principal glaciers 

 of the Folge Fjord, now about 7 miles from the open water of the 

 fjord, though formerly within half a mile. The angular character of 



vol. xliii. h 



