342 ON THE MOVEMENTS OP THE EARTh's CRUSt. 



local disturbances. If we tinu, on the other hand, to localities where 

 the conditions have been more quietly developed, we Und, as may be 

 seen from the preceding statements, that the stages have only a small 

 thickness. The deposits which form them are partly fresh-water forma- 

 tions, partly formations from shallow seas ; there are no well-marked 

 deep-sea formations among them. They are to a great extent— perhaps 

 for the most part — formed in inland seas and bays, in basins which were 

 separated by banks from the open sea. We may arrive at this conclu- 

 sion from the circumstance that salt-water and fresh-water formations so 

 frequently alternate in the Tertiary deposits ; for it is only when strati- 

 fied formations take place in basin-shaped depressions that fresh- water 

 basins can be formed when the sea retires. 



And if we have deep basins which are separated by banks from the 

 open sea, a rising or sinking of the shore-line by some few meters will 

 be sufficient to submerge or lay dry the banks. The deep basin will 

 then alternately be salt and fresh. And a rising of the sea by a few 

 meters will likewise suffice to cause the formation of thick salt-water 

 deposits in the basin. If the bank then again rises a few meters, the 

 basin will remain fresh, and thick fresh-water beds can be deposited 

 above the marine beds. In this way the formation of alternating salt 

 and fresh-water beds may continue, under small displacements of the 

 coast line, until the basin is filled up. 



It would seem to be more difficult to reconcile the hypothesis with 

 the very considerable elevations which particular countries have un- 

 dergone in the period which has elapsed since the Glacial period. Thus 

 near Christiania and Trondheim the highest trace of the sea from the 

 Post-glacial time is situated 188 meters above the sea. But in other 

 parts of our country the highest marine terraces are much lower, so 

 that it would seem as if the elevation has not been everywhere equally 

 great. It seems to have been weaker and weaker outwards from the 

 center of the country. In southern Sweden and Denmark it has also 

 been inconsiderable in the same period. Penck has shown (" Schwan- 

 kungen des Meeresspiegels," in Jalirh. Geogr. Ges. Miinchen, Bd. vii.) 

 that an inland ice exerts an attraction upon the sea, which, for this 

 reason, stands higher on the coast of a country, when the land is cov- 

 ered with ice. The melting of the inland ice may tlierefore have caused 

 the sea on our coasts to sink somewhat, but the difference between the 

 situations of the highest marine traces in the different parts of Scan- 

 dinavia is so great,* even in neighboring localities, that it could not 

 be explained in this way; and the most probable explanation would 

 be that the land has risen in different degrees at different places.t It 



* See E. von Drygalski, " Die Geoidtlefonnatioueii fler Eiszeit," in ZeUschr. d. Ges. 

 f. Erdkunde in Berlin, 1887, Bd. xxii, pp. Kiy et seq. 



t A aimilar unequal elevation has probably also takeu place during earlier periods of 

 elevation. In the Bergen conglomerate, the old shales are situated at a higher level, 

 the farther one goes from the shore. (See Kjerulf, IJdsigt over det sydl. Norges Ge- 

 ologi, Christiania, 1879, pp. 154-156, etc. ; and Helland in Arch. /. Math, og Naturv, 

 Christiania, 1881, Bd. vi. p. 222.) 



