Apart from the fjords and lakes the chief beauties of the Alps are glaciers and waterfalls.
The presence of the sea in these fjords is an accident.
- The coasts of Greenland are for the most part deeply indented with fjords, being intensely glaciated.
Hitherto marine conditions were confined to the littoral; in Middle Miocene times (Helvetian) the sea broke in and spread in a south-east direction in the form of long ramified fjords but did not extend as far as the Sahara.
In the Cordilleran region on the other hand the lakes are long, narrow and deep, in reality sections of mountain valleys occupied by fresh water, just as the fjords of the adjoining coast are valleys occupied by the sea.