Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology21894univers).pdf/150
sought for as far as 100 kilometers to the east and south of the watershed. This southern position was moreover accentuated by meteorological facts. The western moist winds are intercepted by the broad western alpine foreland and the high land near the watershed, while the low country at the southeast would give the moist winds free access to the southern glacier side. The country close to the watershed on the southeast now gets almost all its humidity from the southeast winds, but these would, in early postglacial time, be barred by the inland ice, which in this way would come to have a very dry north side, in contrast to a very moist south side. This would draw the last inland ice out to the southeast edge of the mountain plateau to a point not far above the great epiglacial lakes in southern Norway.
But the melting of the inland ice did not go on uninterruptedly. When the land had risen more than half the postglacial uplift, and when, presumably, the ice was more than half gone, a new deterioration of the climate commenced. It is possible it did not get worse than the present, but it was enough to stop the melting of the inland ice, which again arose above the snow line. The ice again assumed the character of a living glacier, and kept its position unaltered for a long time. Under the pressure of this constant ice load the land again was kept at a constant level. We find, especially in northern Norway, a new strandlinje (sea beach), occurring at about 40 per cent. of the epiglacial and great terraces, built up with a fauna quite like the modern. This new marked phase in postglacial time I have called the subglacial period, denoting its half glacial condition. In Sweden this epoch is also marked by a very distinct beach line, but in Scania and Gothland this low raised beach in places is built upon peat, which shows that the uplift of land in the Boreal period did exceed that in the following. For this reason, the Swedish geologists speak of the post-glacial depression. The term post-glacial for this general phase is very unfortunate. It must necessarily literally denote all the time after the deuteroglacial-epiglacial period, for which time we have no other name. And as the constant level in Norway only represents a single phase in the