58 



" The Post-Glacial Shell Beds, at Uddevalla, Sweden," by 

 Mark Stirrup, F.G.S. 



During a tour that I made last summer through parts of 

 Sweden and Norway, I took the opportunity of visiting the 

 little town of Uddevalla, some 65 miles (by railway) north 

 of Gothenburg in Southern Sweden. 



The steps of wandering naturalists and geologists have 

 been long drawn to this spot, since Linnaeus, some century 

 and a-half ago, drew attention to it in an account he 

 published of a journey in this part of Sweden. 



Its attractions are the immense accumulations of fossil 

 marine shells and barnacles which are found massed against 

 its hills all over the district, at heights from 50 to 200 feet 

 or more above the level of the sea, and of which we find 

 mention made in almost every treatise on the science of 

 Geology. 



The great interest which attaches to these deposits is not 

 only the evidence they afford of the character and geo- 

 graphical distribution of a recent marine fauna, but they 

 have supplied undeniable proofs of the oscillation of land 

 areas, changes of relative level of land and sea, at a period, 

 geologically of yesterday. 



From the inquiries and researches of Swedish geologists 

 and the late Sir Charles Lyell, we learn that this terrestrial 

 movement is still going on in various parts of Scandinavia. 



Although our society has had the benefit of a previous 

 and valuable communication on these shell deposits from 

 Mr. K D. Darbishire in 1876, I thought it would not be 

 inadmissible to give the result of my collection and obser- 

 vation, as great inroads and destruction of the principal 

 deposits at Kapellbackar have, in recent years, been taking 

 place. 



The town of Uddevalla, situated at the head of a small 

 and narrow fjord, lies in a basin-shaped depression almost 



