tlie Land in Scandinavia. ^ i$ 



If such be the cause of the elevation in question, it is plain 

 that we cannot a priori prescribe to it any peculiar mode of ac- 

 tion. A whole district may be elevated equally, so that all parts 

 of it may retain the same relative level. A level plain, for ex- 

 ample, may be elevated throughout, so as to be still level. The 

 plain of Quito among the Andes, the table-land of Thibet, and 

 the interior of Spain, may have been thus raised. Or the eleva- 

 tion may be greater in any given direction, so as to produce an 

 inclination, and consequent draining of the surface ; or it may 

 be greater on two, or three, or all sides, than it is in the centre, 

 and thus may constitute a basin. 



Suppose Scandinavia to have been a plain on which the up- 

 lifting force from within was exerted, the effect might either 

 have been equal over the whole surface, which it evidently was 

 not, or greatest towards the North Cape, so as to produce a con- 

 tinued slope towards the Sound ; or the greatest rise might have 

 been on the west, in Norway and Sweden, or on the east in Fin- 

 land, or there might have been an elevation on the N.E. and W. 

 while the central portion remained nearly at its original level. 

 The last of these seems to have been the true mode of action. 

 Sweden, Finland, and Lapland have been all more or less ele~ 

 vated, while the central part, the bed of the Baltic Sea, has re- 

 mained nearer its original level. 



Nor is such an elevation towards three cardinal points desti- 

 tute of probability on purely physical grounds. It is a result 

 of observation, that cooling bodies, where the surfaces are suffi- 

 ciently extensive, have a tendency to crack at right angles to 

 the surface of greatest cooling ; that is, at right angles to the 

 direction of the greatest contractile force. To this tendency the 

 origin of basaltic columns is traced. Now, the force of contrac 

 tion in the equatorial regions acts powerfully at right angles ta 

 the earth''s axis, and consequently tends to rend the brittle rocky 

 crust by cracks or fissures running towards the poles. Certain 

 lines of small resistance are thus generated, which, in former 

 periods, have afforded a comparatively easy outlet to the fluid 

 matter within, giving rise to ranges of mountains of greater or 

 smaller extent. If two such fissures approach near each other 

 Qt any point, it is consistent with observation that they should 

 either run into each other spontaneously, or that the force from 



