68 Professor G. Forchhammer on the Downs of Denmark, 



stances existed of a kind to preserve the peculiarity of their 

 forms. At all events, there belong to this down-formation 

 the chains of sand-hills of Rhynpeskie and Barchani, between 

 the Wolga and the Jaik, which extend from the lake of Elton 

 to the Caspian sea. We have there the same chains of hills 

 and longitudinal valleys, the same abundance of water, the 

 same fresh vegetation in the valleys : the only difference being, 

 that the breadth is much more considerable than in our 

 downs, a circumstance easy of explanation, inasmuch as they 

 were formed by a receding sea, which, in the course of its 

 diminution, continued to form new sand-hills beyond the older 

 chain of downs. On the other hand, the height of the Cauca- 

 sian Downs is much less considerable than that of the Danish. 

 To such formations also belongs the inner chain of downs on 

 the west coast of the peninsula of Jutland, Schleswig, and 

 Holstein ; it lies on the boundary of the Marsch, is older than 

 it, and its formation belongs to the ante-historical period. It 

 is in some places upwards of twenty English miles distant from 

 the present chain of downs, and has only an inconsiderable 

 elevation. The appearances it presents indicate the action of 

 a much less agitated sea than that which now washes these 

 coasts. I shall therefore once more briefly enumerate the 

 peculiarities of the forms I have mentioned. The downs are 

 stratified ; this stratification is on the small scale always (?) 

 waved, and exhibits on the great scale a double inclination, 

 whose higher angle, which, from the reasons adduced above, 

 scarcely ever deviates much from 30°, is always inclined away 

 from the coast, but whose lower one is inclined towards the 

 coast. Stones are entirely awanting ; valves of shells occur ; 

 many chains of hills said to be elevations may belong to the 

 same category as these downs. 



Before quitting the subject of the downs, I must mention 

 a peculiar modification of the formation which is already per- 

 fected in Vensyssel, but is still in progress in the western por- 

 tion of the Liimfjord. It is produced by the down-sand 

 moving in lakes, or in water in general. In Vensyssel, the most 

 northern portion of Jutland, which, together with Thy, has 

 again become an island since the year 1825, there are united 

 together, insular, much higher portions, which are perfectly 



