GEOLOGY. 



CHANGE OF LEVEL IN THE SEA-COAST OF THE UNITED STATES. 



AT the meeting of the American Academy in February, a report 

 was adopted, requesting the Secretary of the Treasury to instruct the 

 Superintendent of the Coast Survey to cause suitable observations to 

 be made, and permanent monuments to be established at suitable in- 

 tervals along the eastern and western coasts of the United States, in 

 order to determine whether any changes in the relative level of the 

 land and sea take place ; and whether such changes, if they do take 

 place, aue general or local, and whether there is any thing like a 

 balance movement in this continent, whereby one coast rises while 

 another sinks. The committee presenting the report, consider the 

 establishment of land-marks at measured heights above the mean sea 

 level as highly important, because the whole eastern coast of the TJnited 

 States exhibits evidence of a gradual rise of the land during the most 

 recent geological periods, in the deposits of recent marine shells, 

 which are to be seen undisturbed in their natural position, many feet 

 above the highest tides. There are, moreover, direct indications of a 

 gradual rise of the land actually in progress on and around the island 

 of Newfoundland, and similar indications, it is thought, may also be 

 traced along the coast of Maine. In compliance with the request, the 

 Treasury Department has authorized the Superintendent of the Coast 

 Survey to cause the necessary observations to be made, and the re- 

 sults communicated to the Academy. 



CHANGES OF THE RELATIVE LEVEL OF THE SEA AND LAND IN 

 VARIOUS PORTIONS OF THE WORLD. 



In Scandinavia. At the conclusion of an elaborate paper in Jame- 

 son's Journal for January, on " changes of the relative level of sea 

 and land in Scandinavia," Robert Chambers says, " The general 

 fact may now be considered as tolerably certain, that there is a dis- 

 trict in Finmark, of 40 geographical miles in extent, which has sunk 

 58 feet at one extremity, and risen 90 at the other. Its line of dip 



