Mr. Ly eWs Address. 401 



paper you will find many other facts elucidating the rise of land at 

 Valparaiso, and he has also treated of the general question of the 

 elevation of the whole coast of the Pacific from Peru to Terra del 

 Fuego. Beds of shells were traced by him at various heights above 

 the sea, some a few yards, others 500 or even 1300 feet high, the' 

 shells being in a more advanced state of decomposition in propor- 

 tion to their elevation. Mr. Darwin also shows that parallel ter- 

 races such as those of Coquimbo, described by Captain Basil Hall 

 and others, which rise to the height of 300 feet and more, are of 

 marine origin, being sometimes covered with sea-shells, and they 

 indicate successive elevations. There are also grounds for believing 

 that the modern upheaval of land has proceeded not only by sud- 

 den starts during convulsions of the earth, but also by insensible 

 degrees in the intervals between earthquakes, as is now admitted to 

 be the case in parts of Norway and Sweden. l 



This gradual and insensible rising is supposed to affect, not only 

 the region of the Andes, but also the opposite or eastern coast of 

 South America, where earthquakes are never experienced : for 

 the Pampas of Buenos Ayres bear marks of having risen to their 

 present height during a comparatively modern period, while the 

 coast line of the Pacific, or the region of earthquakes and volcanic 

 eruptions, has been the theatre of more violent movements. 



It is curious to reflect that if in one portion of a large area of the 

 earth's surface a rise of land takes place at the rate of a few inchesi 

 in a century, as around Stockholm, while in another portion of the 

 same area land is uplifted about a yard during an equal period, there 

 will be caused, if sufficient time be allowed, a group or chain of 

 lofty mountains in one place, and in the other a low country like 

 the Pampas of South America. 



Evidence of a sinking down of land, whether sudden or gradual, 

 is usually more difficult to obtain than the signs of upheaval. I shall 

 therefore mention some facts which have been lately communicated 

 to me by Professor Nilsson, from* which it appears that Scania, of 

 the southernmost part of Sweden, has been slowly subsiding for se- 

 veral centuries, in the same manner as was lately shown to be the 

 ease with part of Greenland. In the first place there are no elevated 

 beds of recent marine shells in Scania, like those near Stockholm and 

 further to the north. Linnaeus, with a view of ascertaining whether 

 the waters of the Baltic were retiring from the Scanian shore, 

 measured in 1749 the distance between the sea and a large stone 

 near Trelleborg. Now Mr. Nilsson informs me that this same 

 stone is a hundred feet nearer the water's edge than it was in Lin- 

 naeus's time, or eighty-seven years before. He also states that there, 

 is a submerged peat moss, consisting of land and freshwater plants, 

 beneath the sea at a point to which no peat could have been drifted 

 down by any river. But, what is still more conclusive, it is found 

 that in sea-port towns, all along the coast of Scania, there are streets 

 below the high-water level of the Baltic, and in some cases below 

 the level of the lowest tide. Thus when the wind is high at Malmo 

 the water overflows one of the present streets, and some years ago 



Third Series. Vol. 10. No. 62. May 1837. 3 F 



