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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
sunken rocks and skerries, islets and islands, are all so many relics 
of the uneven surface of the old land. The indented form of the 
coast-line of the west of Scotland and of Norway is not evidence 
of the unequal encroachments of the sea, but is due to a general 
submergence of the west side of the two countries, whereby the 
tides have been sent far inland, filling from side to side ancient 
valleys and lakes.'^ Subsequent re-elevations are marked along 
both the Norwegian and Scottish shores by successive terraces or 
raised beaches. 
But to one who has sailed and boated among the sea-lochs of 
Scotland, no feature of the Norwegian coast is at once so striking 
and so familiar as the universal smoothing and rounding of the 
rocks, which is now recognised as the result of the abrading power 
of ice. Every skerry and islet among the countless thousands of 
that coast-line is either one smooth boss of rock, like the back of a 
whale or dolphin, or a succession of such bosses rising and sinking- 
in gentle undulations into each other. Such, too, is the nature of 
tlie rocky shore of every fjord ; the smoothed surface growing 
gradually rougher, indeed, as we trace it upward from the sea-level, 
yet continuing to show itself, until at a height of many hundred 
feet it merges into the broken, scarped outlines of the higher 
mountain sides and summits.f In short, as is now well known, the 
whole of the surface of the country, for many hundred feet above 
the sea, has been ground down and smoothed by ice. 
We sailed along the coast of Norway, between Bergen and 
Hammerfest, by the usual steamboat route, touching at many 
stations by the way, threading the narrow kyles and sounds that 
lie among the innumerable islands, and now and then running in- 
land up some fjord far into the heart of the country. We halted 
here and there to spend a few days at a time in exploring some of 
the fjords and glaciers. What can be seen from the steamer on 
the coasting voyage is now familiar from the numerous descriptions 
which have been given of it in recent years. I shall therefore 
^ See a fuller statement of this subject in “ Scenery of Scotland,” pp. 125- 
137. 
t The singularly ice-worn aspect of the Norwegian coast, as well as its 
strong resemblance to the west coast of Scotland, was succinctly described by 
Principal Forbes, “ Norway and its Glaciers,” p. 42 et seq. 
