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FORMATION OF GLACIERS.
231
that such fjelds are not altogether level; they are more
or less backed or elevated towards their centre, so that
there is a varying slope towards the great notches
between their boundary peaks. These notches must
necessarily be the outlets of the accumulating snow.
Overhanging the Stiggevand, just described, is one
of the notches, which communicates by an almost
perpendicular wall writh the lake below. The ice of the
sneefond there bends over in the manner described,
and when the overhanging mass exceeds in weight the
coherent power of the ice, huge fragments are detached,
which fall into the lake below the snow-line, where they
thaw and commence a river.
Here in the valley of the Justedal are several of such
notches. This valley is, in fact, formed on one side by
the slopes of a row of the fringing or boundary peaks
of the Justedal Sneefond. The notches between these
peaks do not, however, terminate in steep walls like those
over the Stiggevand, but in sloping valleys which are
tributary to the larger valley of Justedal. If the fjeld
above were not snow-covered, simple tributary streams
of water would flow down these into the river of the
main valley; but as it is, great streams of ice flow, or
are thrust, dowrn far below the snow-line, where they
thaw, and thus contribute to tlie stream. These ice
torrents are the true glaciers: the formation of the
Swiss and other glaciers is similar.
Some notion of the amount of thawing that thus
takes place, may be formed from the experiments of
M. Bohr, who compared the discharge of the Storelv in
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