FORMER GLACIATION OF SCANDINAVIA. 363 



and ranges. This was also, in fact, the epoch of striation, of moraine forma- 

 tion, and, to some extent, of boulder transportation. During that time the 

 morainic detritus was more or less worked over and rearranged by the 

 glacial streams.* The land was more elevated than it now is. 



This first period of high land and great glacier expansion was succeeded 

 by one in which the country was depressed, although not regularly and 

 miiforrnlj^, areas not far distant from each other being sometimes in this 

 respect very differently aftected. The region of maximum depression was 

 in the latitude of Stockholm, where it was certainly as much as one or two 

 thousand feet; forther south it was considerably less than that. The ocean 

 gradually submerging the land, the ice fields diminished in size, shrinking 

 constantly. This was the period during which the old morainic deposits 

 were worked over by the sea, the result being their taking the form of long- 

 lines of rolled boulders and pebbles, known in Sweden by the name of asar. 



During this jjrocess the finer clayey materials were washed out from the 

 coarser and deposited at some distance in a stratified condition. In the clay 

 beds thus formed the remains of marine organisms were buried, thus proving, 

 bej'ond possibility of doubt, the former presence of the ocean, and the oscil- 

 lations of the land. This was also the time when icebergs were detached 

 from the glaciers which reached the sea, and by their means a farther 

 transportation of boulders was effected. The glaciers, however, gradually 

 diminished in size as the land sank, and at length came to occupy only the 

 very highest portions of the range. At this time the land became finally so 

 much depressed that a communication was opened across the Peninsula 

 between the seas on each side, a considerable portion of the higher plateaux 

 becominsj submerg:ed. 



This period of depression of the land was followed by one of elevation — 

 the Post-glacial, namely — which rising continued until the Peninsula 

 attained nearly its present topography. At this time the plateau between 

 Lakes Wenner and Wetter Avas rai.sed above the water, and became con- 

 nected with the higher land to the north and south, thus isolating the Baltic 

 Sea, and converting it into a closed basin, its fauna from that time forward 

 gradually losing its Arctic character. Lakes Wenner and Wetter also were no 

 longer connected with the Polar Sea. That they were formerly thus united, 

 however, is proved by the presence in them of a depauperated Arctic fauna. 



* The numlier and volume of these in iin extensively glaciated northern i-cgion has already been noted in 

 describing the conditions prevailing in Greenland. 



