The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

THE SCANDINAVIAN FIOEDS. £5tills source, and the marine alga3 eitherperish slowly or give place to fresh-waterplants of rapid growth. The Dramms-fiord, fed by the Dranims-elv, the secondlargest river in Norway, resembles other formations of the same kind in its uniformwidth of 1 to 2 miles, and mean depth of 350 feet. But at the Sverdvikendefile it suddenly contracts to a stream 16 feet deep and a few hundred yardswide, running seawards with a current of9 miles an hour during the flow, and about5 at ebb.Most of the fiords are partially obstructedat their entrance by the remains of oldmoraines, which in the north are calledkavbroen, or " sea bridges." Both sides ofthe Gulf of Christiania are regularly linedwith the shingly deposits of such ancientmoraines. But what is the origin of the barsoccurring at certain intervals from the mouthto the upper end of the fiords ? Some are ridgesbetween two valleys resembling those of theupheaved land ; some are slopes produced byerosion ; while others, no doubt, are moraineslike those deposited by former glaciers at thefoot of the hills in the upheaved valleys.For, like the Scottish firths, the Scandinavianfiords existed before the glacial period, andwere able to maintain their original form bymeans of the vast glaciers filling and deepeningtheir beds, and grinding smooth their ruggedsides. In warmer or more humid regions theestuaries were slowly filled in by the alluvia ofthe streams or the sands of the sea, whereas thefiords retained their original depth, often belowthe bed of the neighbouring seas, whichaccordingly advanced as the glaciers retired.But since then the running waters and theocean have begun the vast geological workof filling in these northern estuaries. Therivers bring down their alluvia, depositingFig. 41.— DllAMMS-FTORD ANDSyekdyikejj Channel.Scale 1 : 152,000.them in regular strata at the foot of the hills, while the sea precipitates, ineven layers of sand or mud, the detritus washed away by the waves.The workof transformation has already made perceptible progress, and the old inlets havedisappeared along the south-west coast between Porsgrund and Stavangerfiords.In this region, exposed to the southern suns and sheltered by the elevatedplateaux from the northern winds, the glaciers retired much earlier than on thewest coast, and between the already effaced inlets of the extreme south and theVOL. V. H