234 Great Ice Age and Origin of the “ Till ” [April, 
the coast are glaciated to their summits — are simply roches- 
montonnes over which the reindeer of the Tromsdal Lapps 
range and feed. On the west the mountains are dark 
pyramidal peaks, with long vertical snow streaks marking 
their angular masses. 
The contrast is very striking when seen from the highest 
part of the island, and is clearly due to a decline in the thick- 
ness of the ice-sheet in the course of its journey across this 
narrow channel. Speaking roughly from eye estimation, I 
should say that this thinning or lowering of the limits of 
glaciation exceeds 500 feet between the opposite sides of the 
channel, which, allowing for the hill slopes, is a distance of 
about 6 miles. This very small inclination would bring 
a glacier of 3000 feet in thickness on the shore down to the 
sea-level in an outward course of 30 miles, or about half 
the distance between the mainland and the outer rocks of 
the Lofodens. 
I am quite at a loss to understand the reasoning upon 
which Mr. Geikie bases his firm conviction respecting the 
depth of the ice sheet on the low grounds of Scotland and 
Scandinavia. He seems to assume that the glaciers of the 
great ice age had little or no superficial down slope corres- 
ponding to the inclination of the base on which they rested. 
I have considerable hesitation in attributing this assumption 
to Mr. Geikie, and would rather suppose that I have mis- 
understood him, as it is a conclusion so completely refuted 
by all we know of glacier phenomena and the physical laws 
concerned in their production, but the passages I have quoted 
and several others are explicit and decided. 
Those geologists who contend for the former existence 
of a great polar ice-cap radiating outwards and spreading 
into the temperate zones might adopt this mode of measuring 
its thickness, but Mr. Geikie rejects this hypothesis, and 
shows by his map of “ The Principal Lines of Glacial Ero- 
sion in Sweden, Norway, and Finland,” that the glaciation 
of the extreme north of Europe proceeded from south to 
north ; that the ice was formed on land, and proceeded 
seawards in all directions. 
I may add to this testimony that presented by the North 
Cape, Sverholt, Nordkyn, and the rest of the magnificent 
precipitous headlands that constitute the characteristic fea- 
ture of the arCtic face of Europe. They stand forth defiantly 
as a phalanx of giant heralds proclaiming aloud the fallacy 
of this idea of southward glacial radiation ; and in concur- 
rence with the structure and striation of the great glacier 
troughs that lie between them, and the planed table-land at 
