GERARD DE GEER — QUATERNARY CHANGES OF LEVEL. 67 



from the maximum ice extension during the earlier and greater glaciation are even 

 then about ten times too small. We are thus obliged to admit that these shore- 

 lines have been uplifted through a real continental elevation of the earth's crust. 



During the last four years I have determined a considerable number of points, and 

 these have afforded good evidence corroborative of the opinions expressed in my 

 first paper. Thus the isanabases were found to conform with the limits of the 

 Scandinavian Azoic territory, and, according to the very latest determinations, not 

 only in a general way but also in many details, the isanabases, for instance, form • 

 ing a great convexity around the southern extension of Sweden as well as small 

 ones around several promontories. On the other hand, they form concave lines 

 around lake Wener, as shown on the accompanying map. Though not yet quite 

 settled, the case is probably similar with regard to lake Wetter, the second largest 

 lake in Scandinavia. These lakes, therefore, have not risen quite so much as the 

 surrounding country. This fact seems to indicate that our larger lakes were orig- 

 inally more depressed than their surroundings during an earlier stage of the ice 

 age, thus probably accounting for their formation. 



The coincidence between the area of upheaval and the Azoic territory may pos- 

 sibly be explained by assuming that this territory, which is an old tract of erosion, 

 has also been one of continental upheaval which subsided during the ice age, for 

 the greater part perhaps in consequence of the considerable ice-load, again rising 

 after the release from the latter, though not to its former altitude. Before this rise, 

 several straits crossed the central portion of Sweden, and through these Yoldia 

 arctica and Idothea entomon certainly immigrated to the tracts around Stockholm, 

 near lake Mtelar. These straits were gradually uplifted above the sea-level, and 

 the Baltic sea became a true fresh-water lake. To this time belong probably the 

 beaches in open situation, although containing such fresh-water forms as Ancylus 

 fluviatilis, Pisidium, Planorbis and others, which have been found in Estland, Gotland 

 and Oeland by Messrs. Schmidt, Munthe and Holm. 



As shown by peat-bogs, river channels, and deposits of littoral mollusks, all now 

 submarine, the rise of the land continued until some tracts, at least, were lifted to 

 about 30 meters higher than at present. Then a new continental depression com- 

 menced, the uppermost limit of which I have had the good fortune to discover 

 and to determine at some twenty points in southern Sweden. This limit is marked 

 in many places of level ground by unusually well-developed beaches and terraces, 

 below which marine deposits with a true post-glacial fauna — containing the species 

 characteristic of the kitchen-middens of Denmark — are found, indicating Salter and 

 probably somewhat warmer water than at present. 



The post-glacial limit is situated in the middle portion of the country about 50 

 meters above sea-level, becoming gradually lower towards the peripheral parts 

 until no evidence of any upheaval whatsoever can be discovered. While this post- 

 glacial depression is of a special interest in that its maximum was probably con- 

 temporaneous with the beginning of the neolithic stone age in Scandinavia, it also 

 shows thai a depression has taken place which cannot be directly connected with 

 the ice-load. In the meantime, it cannot yet be decided whether this subsidence of 

 the land between the two upheavals has occurred even in the central parts of the 

 country ami has been proportionate to the amount of these, oris perhaps only a peri- 

 pheral phenomenon synchronous witli a continuous elevation about the axis of uplift. 



The distribution of the deformation indicated by the raised beaches is shown in 

 t he accompanying map, plate 2. 



