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of loose material, an ancient sea beach, corresponding to the
terraces at the mouth of the valley. It is the old raised beach line.
There is sometimes a shelf cut in the solid rock, but generally
the shore current and the beating of the waves has thrown up a
beach of clay, sand and shingle. This old shore-line, like the
terraces, diminishes in height towards the edge of the coast; the
land has risen most along the glacier’s axis of height east of the
watershed, and the loose deposits farthest out are not higher than
from 30 to 60 feet above the sea. The raised beach itself is
generally only from 60 to 300 feet in width. It thus seems to be
quite a trifling phenomen in the topography of the land, but is of
quite extraordinary significance as regards human habitation. Above
the line, there is generally the bare mountain or on steeper sides
a talus, on which there grows a scanty vegetation; while from the
line downwards, there is shingle and sand and clay and arable land.
Human habitations in the west country generally stop, therefore,
at the ancient shore-line level.
Immediately above the old marine limit, there is in the valleys
too, a scarcity of loose deposits. A considerable quantity of moraine
gravel, however, is often found a little way up the slope, especially
in slate country, where the glacier carried more with it. About
the large east country lakes, which lie in the Silurian district,
there are still larger continuous tracts of bottom moraine with
fertile boulder clay (Hedemarken, Toten, Hadeland). Down at the flat
bottom of the valleys themselves, there is the river deposit, coarse
gravel where the incline is steep, finer sand upon the level ledges.
Nor has the glacier left any considerable amount of bottom
shingle beneath it, beyond the valleys, upon the Highland, or in
the Woodland. In the hard granite and gneiss in the Woodland
especially, there was nothing but some gravel in the hollows
between the naked mountain knolls. Bevond the vallevs, there is
therefore exceedingly little cultivated land here above the marine
step. Considerably more loose covering is found in the Highland,
especially on its eastern slope, generally covered with bogs and
dreary heaths.
Thus, on the whole, the loose covering plays an unimportant
part in the topography of Norway, this being in strong contrast
to the circumstances in other countries. The more continuous
deposits of any thickness cover scarcely ⅒ of the surface of the
country. We can see everywhere the original shapes of the mountain
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