not a strong constitution, could survive a single year at Montpellier. He has to contend with a burning sun, which, even although he keeps within doors, heats the air so, that he is thrown into a violent perspiration, injurious and weakening to the patient. Nor is the climate free from damp: there is seldom rain, it is true, perhaps not once a month on an average; but when the sea wind blows, which it not unfrequently does, it produces lassitude, weakness, difficulty of breathing, coughs and colds. It is here called the marain; in other parts it is called garbin and lebesche, and on the coast of Italy it is usually known by the names of libeccio or garbino. I have even no doubt of its identity with the pestilential sirocco: so damp is the marain, that the very doors are observed to swell exceedingly during its continuance. Even the fine weather makes one more liable to be injured by the bad: the heats of the day seem to open the pores of the body, and render an attack of the damps more injurious. Few could be induced, I believe, to remain at Rome during the summer months. At Montpellier, the climate is not so bad; but surely it is not what an invalid ought to be exposed to.

Account of a Visit to the Glaciers of Justedal, and to the Mantle of Lodal *. By G. BOHR, of Bergen.

THE journey to the Mantle of Lodal, the highest mountain

summit amidst the splendid and stupendous glaciers which lie between Justedal and Olden, may be commenced either from the end of Lysterfiord, or from the farm-house of Rödnei, near the Church of Goupé. Mr Bohr chose the first of these routes,

It will easily be seen, that B. obovata and B. raphanifolia are not distinct species; that B. ciliata and B. depressa ought not to be separated; that B. leiocarpa is scarcely to be distinguished from B. apula, &c. With regard to B. leiocarpa, De Candolle says, "fructu etiam nascente glaberrimo nec pube minuta scabro;" but through the author's kindness, I have been able to ascertain, that, in his own specimen, the fruit is exactly as in B. apula, except that in the latter it is scabrous also on the margin, whilst in B. leiocarpa, it is there perfectly smooth.

A mountain in the interior of Norway, so called, from its being always covered with snow, It lies above 150 English miles NE. of Bergen.

although in summer it is perhaps the most difficult of the two. Through the cultivated valley of Dahl, a side branch of the cheerful and rich valley of Lyster, you come to Storhaugen, about seven English miles from Lysterfiord. Five miles farther on, you reach a picturesque elevation, about 2513 feet above the level of the sea, from which you descend to a delightful restingplace, called Störksel. Here Nidal, the first valley in Justedal, inclosed on each side by lofty snow-covered mountains, has already begun to display its enchanting scenery, combining what is most beautiful with what is most fearful. Through green fields covered with corn and grass, with the houses of the peasants scattered over them, you advance along its grey coloured stream, with its banks shaded with trees, but overhung by dark naked precipices, which threaten to fall on your head. About three miles on you reach the Church of Justedal, 621 feet above the level of the sea. Between the farm-houses of Kiervig and Kieppé, opposite to the parsonage-house, the traveller discovers five small water-falls from the rock of Kiersdal, which, in their descent, unite into one, the velocity of which, before it reach the river, is so great that it rises again in vapours.

Opposite to the farm-house of Kregé, the first large sky-blue coloured mass of ice begins to shine, called the Glacier of Berset, a branch of the huge mass which covers Lodal. Its lower margin is about 1440 feet above the level of the sea. There, where Kroudal, Krege Dal, and Melvirs Dal meet one another, is a fine and picturesque situation, abounding in all the beauties peculiar to the lower alpine regions. Every thing that nature does in these valleys is impressive. A little farther east and farther up, the road passes another majestic mass of ice, called the Glacier of Nigaard, which is at present larger, and in its former effects was more destructive than the Glacier of Berset. In addition to what Von Buch and Professor Smith have said, in their account of these glaciers, I shall quote an extract on this subject from the archives of N. Bergenhaus. "At the farm of Berset, on the 21st of August 1742, attended the Sheriff, the Bailiff of the district, and six chosen inspectors, to estimate the damage which the glacier had occasioned. Two old men declared, that, in their youth, the glacier had been high up in a cleft of the mountain, but that during the last ten

years, it had descended about 600 feet upon the open plain, bearing before it all the earth and stones lying on the surface of the ground. (This mass of gravel, and sand and stone, is what the Swiss call Moraine). In breadth it extended about 1680 feet, so that to the west, across the valley, from the mountain to the river, all was covered with ice. From the south, too, the ice had descended into the valley, so that the farm was deprived of the greatest part of its pasture-ground, though what remained was at present very green. There was a small quantity of corn in the ear, but unripe, from the strong cold wind which now more than formerly descended from the glacier. The excessive reflection of the sun's rays, too, from the ice, was found to be injurious to the meadow ground. Within a few years all the houses on the farm had been carried away, by two successive falling masses of snow, and were set up again in new situations."

Other instances are to be found of the encroachments of the glaciers, and of the mischief occasioned by them. An old woman, who died in the year 1810, according to the parish-book of Justedal, had been often in the old farm-house of Nigaard, whose inhabitants, according to her account, and that of several other persons, did not leave it till the ice had pushed the house away. The peasant Claus Elvekragen remembers seeing, about fifty years ago, the roof of a house buried in the moraine; so that there is good reason to believe, that a great part of the valleys now covered by the glaciers has been formerly inhabited. At the same time, there is unquestionable evidence, that many of the glaciers in Justedal are at present growing less, both in depth and length. The mighty accumulation of moraine, which this very glacier of Nigaard had formerly pushed before it, is now about 1726 feet below its margin, while the bare sides of the mountain shew its depth now more than 200 feet less than it has once been. The yearly amount of the difference, however, and its periodical changes, it is impossible, from the want of accurate observations, to ascertain. The tradition, that they increase and diminish every seventh or every nineteenth year, is of equal authority with many other gratuitous hypotheses with regard to the season and the weather. The crops at Elvckra

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gen this year were very good, while nothing but the moraine stood between the glacier and the ripe corn.

On Melvirsdal, borders Stordal, over which the shealings of the inhabitants of Justedal lie spread. (These are the mountain huts to which the natives of the valleys in Norway repair in summer, when the high pastures are accessible to their cattle.) These mountain downs and plains, beneficent nature has enriched with many luxuriant trees and plants. In the beginning of July, the snow had vanished from the pastures. A beautitiful summer here follows a long winter: The length of the day, the stillness of the night, the heat reflected from the sides of the mountains, concur to awaken almost instantaneously the powers of nature. The Author of Nature saw it necessary, that, in regions where the summer is sadly contracted, plants should spring up, bloom, and ripen, in the shortest possible time. On the 11th of July the peasants had begun to draw up to their friendly shealings. First came a drove of cattle, then a horse with panniers, followed by a peasant, with his little child on his back; then the mother and her household. All were jesting and singing, every thing was activity and gladness. Sometimes, indeed, masses of snow threatened to tumble down upon them from the rocky summits, and fragments of the rocks themselves which had fallen, contributed the more to awaken apprehension; but the sight of the cheerful valley banished every disagreeable impression, while the glacier seemed necessáry as a contrast to the beauty of the scene. Step by step, the glacier of Biöra Steg (the Bear's Path) presented itself to our view, like an immense theatre, between ice-covered mountains, the sides of which, like the scenes of a theatre, embellished with the most picturesque groupes, inclosed this majestic mass of ice. Several objects in front of it shew beyond doubt that this, like the other glaciers in Justedal, had extended farther down, and was of greater depth in former days. The river of Justedal, which formerly went under this glacier, runs now between the ice and the moraine, which it had formerly carried down with it, and which marks its ancient limits. At one place was a sort of road, laid with stones, over which the peasants, about eighty years ago, used to pass to their shealings. About this time the glacier broke through with such force, that those who were going to

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the shealing, could scarcely open themselves a way with axes, through the prodigious offshots which had come from it during the foregoing day. Close beside this stone-road, under hanging rocks, and immediately before the glacier, were full grown birch, mountain-ash, and other trees, with the common subalpine shrubs and plants. This glacier ascends to near the foot of Lodal's Mantle, the inexhaustible snows of which feed this and all the other glaciers around.

If, by the north-west side of the glacier, you press forward through several wild stretches of valley-ground, whose precipitous sides some terrible giant seems in his wrath to have overlaid with a multitude of loose masses of rock, which seem just about to crush the passing wanderer, you come at last to the cheerful shealings of Faaberg, about 1280 feet above the level of the sea. Here the happy pastoral life, and the true alpine scenery, exhibit themselves in their finest and most peculiar characters. Between four and five miles from the cots of Faaberg, Stordal begins to be narrower and narrower, till at once the whole scene is changed, and every thing becomes wild and frightful. Yellow meadows and green mountain-downs now touch on large desolate fields of sand and gravel, and small stones, and masses of rock of the size of a castle. These fields are cut through by many small streams of water, gurgling from both the bottom and the surface of the glacier above. The whole is inclosed by naked columns of rock, and in the back ground the lower margins of the two proudest of the offspring of Lodal's Mantle, the glaciers of Lodal and Trangedal, present themselves, at the height of 1597 feet above the level of the sea. They are separated from one another by a small mountain, covered all over with ice and snow. The nearest verges of the glaciers exhibited innumerable clefts of the most splendid appearance, and of a sky-blue colour. The moraine shewed clearly that these glaciers, too, had formerly descended about 1700 feet farther down; while the dark naked sides of the mountain, as if the surface had been shorn off, shewed that they had been formerly about 200 feet deeper.

Our walk over the Glacier of Lodal was not difficult; you might ride, or even drive over it, if there were a road to it for carriages. You can come down on the surface of the ice from