To this condition characteristic of high latitude glaciers, there is added in Norway another in the peculiar shape of the basement beneath the recent and the still existing glaciers. The plateau of Norway is intersected by a network of deep and steep walled fjords, and the glaciers have developed as small ice caps perched upon veritable pedestals of rock, over the margins of which their outlet tongues of ice descend on steep slopes into the fjord. The tops of the pedestals thus come to be shaped by the plucking and abrading processes into flat domes (Fig. 406), while the knobs of rock, which as nunataks reach above the surface of the ice, divide the outflowing ice tongues at the margin of the pedestal. These tongues being much more active denuding agents, because of their steep gradients, continually lower their beds, thus transforming the earlier knobs of rock into high and steep mountains of more or less circular base. Such “beehive” mountains upon the margins of the fjords are the characteristic Norwegian _tinds_ (Fig. 407). READING REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER XXVI I. C. RUSSELL. Quaternary History of Mono Valley, California, 8th Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Surv., 1889, pp. 329-371, pls. 27-37. F. E. MATTHES. Glacial Sculpture of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming, 21st Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Surv., 1900, Pt. ii, pp. 179-185, pl. 23. W. D. JOHNSON. Maturity in Alpine Glacial Erosion, Jour. Geol., vol. 12, 1904, pp. 569-578. G. K. GILBERT. Systematic Asymmetry of Crest Lines in the High Sierras of California, _ibid._, pp. 579-588. EMM. DE MARTONNE. Sur la Formation des Cirques, Ann. de Géogr., vol. 10, 1901, pp. 10-16. W. M. DAVIS. Glacial Erosion in North Wales, Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. Lond., vol. 65, 1909, pp. 281-350, pl. 14. ED. BRÜCKNER. Die Glazialen Züge im Antlitz der Alpen, Naturw. Wochenschr., N. F., vol. 8, 1909. WILLIAM H. HOBBS. Characteristics of Existing Glaciers, pp. 1-96. CHAPTER XXVII SUCCESSIVE GLACIER TYPES OF A WANING GLACIATION =Transition from the ice cap to the mountain glacier.=—A study of existing glaciers leads inevitably to the conclusion that although subject to short period advances and retreats, yet, broadly speaking, glaciers are now gradually wasting away, surrounded by wide areas upon which are the evidences of their recent occupation. We are thus living in a receding hemicycle of glaciation. [Illustration: FIG. 408.—Schematic diagram to show the relationships of glacier types formed in succession during a receding hemicycle of glaciation.]