394 Proceedings of the British Association. 



turalist Celsius bad declared his opinion, that the level of the 

 waters, both of the Baltic and the ocean, were suffering a gradual 

 depression. In confii*mation of this phenomenon, Celsius had ap- 

 pealed to several distinct classes of proofs ; \st. The testimony of 

 the inhabitants on the northern shores of the Gulf of Bothnia, that 

 towns formerly sea ports were then far inland, and that the sea 

 was still constantly leaving dry new tracts of land along its borders. 

 2c?fy, The testimony of the same inhabitants, that various insulated 

 rocks in the Gulf of Bothnia, and on some parts of the eastern 

 shores of Sweden, then rose higher above the level of the sea than 

 they remembered them to have done in their youth. Qdly, That 

 marks had been cut on the fixed rocks on the shore some thirty 

 years or more before, to point out the level at which the waters of 

 the Baltic formerly stood when not raised by the winds to an un-. 

 usual height, and that these marks already indicated a sinking of 

 the waters. On the whole, Celsius concluded that the rate of de- 

 pression amounted to three or four feet in a hundred years. To 

 this conclusion it was objected, that there were many parts of the 

 Baltic where the level of the sea had riot fallen, as could be proved 

 by ancient pines and castles standing close to the water's edge, and 

 other natural and artificial monuments. It was remarked that the 

 new accessions of land were chiefly where rivers entered the sea, 

 and where new sedimentary deposits were forming ; and that the 

 marks were not to be depended upon, because the level of the sea 

 fluctuated in consequence of the action of the wind. 



Von Buch, in the course of his tour in Sweden and Norway, 

 about twenty-five years ago, found at several places on the western 

 shores of Scandinavia, deposits of sand and mud containing nu- 

 merous shells referable to species now living in the neighbouring 

 ocean. From this circumstance, and from accounts which he re- 

 ceived from inhabitants of the coasts of the Bothnian Gulf, he in- 

 ferred that Celsius was correct in regard to a gradual change of 

 relative level. As the sea cannot sink in one place without falling 

 every where, Von Buch concluded that certain parts of Sweden 

 and Finland were slowly and insensibly rising. Mr Lyell, together 

 with Von Hoff and others, still continued to entertain doubts with 

 regard to the reality of this phenomenon, partly on grounds stated 

 by former writers, and above enumerated, partly because Sweden 

 and Norway have been, within the times of history, very free from 

 violent earthquakes, and because the elevation was said to take 

 place not suddenly and by starts, according to the analogy of the 



