304 Geology of Scandinavia. 



On the Thousand Islands which border the south coast of 

 Spitzbergen, we find accumulations of the bones of whales. 



According to Pennant, the shore of a low island situated to 

 the east of Spitzbergen, almost opposite to the entrance of the 

 Waygat, is formed of an ancient concretion of sand, of bones 

 of whales, and of" trunks of trees or of floated wood. 



However, these deposits of shells, which are so extensively 

 spread over the coasts of the north of Europe, do not invariably 

 occur there. 



According to the data furnished by Professor Nilsson to Mr 

 Lyell, and stated by the latter in his address to the Geological 

 Society of London in February 1837, no beaches of shells ana- 

 logous to those of which we have been speaking are found in 

 Scania. It is also known that this phenomenon is almost en- 

 tirely awanting in the middle part of Europe, or is only obser- 

 vable at a very small height. 



The geological facts which I have just mentioned have often 

 been connected with the present phenomenon of the gradual 

 elevation of certain parts of Sweden ; but there is nothing to 

 prove that the raising of beds of shells to a high elevation is the 

 result of a slow and gradual process. Their general appear- 

 ance would seem, perhaps, more in harmony with the idea of a 

 sudden rising. This point, however, will be an interesting sub- 

 ject of research for the expedition. 



But, what already appears certain is, that the spheres of ac- 

 tivity of the two phenomena (the present and the ancient change 

 of level) are very different from each other. M. de Buch, who 

 has always regarded the two phenomena as very different, has 

 shewn, in a decisive manner, that the phenomenon of the eleva- 

 tion of Sweden is unconnected with those parts of Norway 

 which are covered by the beds of shells of which we are speak- 

 ing. We see, he writes to me, at Luvoe, runic stones, placed 

 on beds at so slight an elevation above the sea, that there would 

 have been no foundation on which to place these stones, which 

 are traceable to a remote antiquity, if the rate for Sweden, of four 

 feet of elevation in each century, were applicable to Norway. 



I need scarcely add, that all the facts of this kind, and all 

 the remarks relative to this question which the expedition could 

 collect, would be valuable acquisitions for science. 



