90 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. APRIL, 1891. 
feet above sea level. It is cleft and split in a striking fashion, 
its caverns and crevices with walls of the most glorious and 
translucent blue. A hunt in these crevices for scratched 
stones yielded no results. 
Though the icefields (fonds) of Norway are so huge, the 
glaciers (braes) all are small—insignificant, indeed, from the 
point of view of comparison with those met with in Switzer¬ 
land. This glacier is one of the finest. I do not know the 
rate at which it is advancing, but its present end is thrust 
straight into the midst of a dense wood of bircli and alder 
trees. When I visited the Buar Brae, a glacier from the 
Folgefond, probably the next largest icefield in Norway, in 
1874, it was advancing down the valley at a rate of at least 
50 feet per year, and 70 yards was given as its advance in one 
year shortly before that. The result, of course, is that the 
glacier has largely overridden its moraines, and these are 
barely recognisable. Here at the Brigsdalsbrae the terminal 
moraine is represented by huge mounds of loose, small, rounded, 
water-worn stones, amidst which the glacier streams make 
their way; while just below are huge ledges of bare rock, 
stretching right across the path of the glacier. A visit to the 
latter will be specially interesting when it has reached these 
ridges, unless, indeed, it pushes before it a sufficient mass of 
the loose pebbles to mask the huge rock steps. Being so 
small, the present Norwegian glaciers appear to be deficient in 
eroding power, though signs are everywhere abundant of the 
mighty sculpturing force they were in earlier ages. Our stay 
at this glacier was all too short; we had intended to lunch at 
it, but the uncertainty of the weather rendered this risky, so 
we made our way back to the houses at the head of the lake 
aforementioned, and lunched under cover. I fear that the 
appliances of civilization ran short; at any rate, a flash 
picture of the room would have revealed our guide, counsellor, 
and friend, Mr. Stone, doling out the delicious pancakes for 
which Norwegian cookery is famous with his fingers! And 
not one of us thought it in the least degree objectionable. 
How merely skin deep our civilization is ! 
(To be concluded next month.) 
HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 
BY WM. MATHEWS, M.A. 
( Continued from pane 41. ) 
The Brambles are treated of in the Appendix at the end 
of the table, pp. 87-48. The latest synopsis of the British 
Species is that contained in the 8th edition of the “ London 
Catalogue,” 1886. It is the work of Professor Babington, 
