TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 653 



that the rate of depression amounted to three or four feet in a 

 hundred j^ears. To this conclusion it was objected that there 

 were many parts of the Baltic where the level of the sea had not 

 fallen, as could be proved by ancient pines and castles standing 

 close to the water's edge, and other natural and artificial monu- 

 ments. It was remarked that the new accessions of land were 

 chiefly where rivers entered the sea, and where new sedimentary 

 deposits were forming ; and that the marks were not to be de- 

 pended upon, because the level of the sea fluctuated in conse- 

 quence of the action of the wind. 



Von Buch, in the course of his tour in Sweden and Norway, 

 about twenty- five years ago, found at several places on the 

 western shores of Scandinavia deposits of sand and mud con- 

 taining numerous shells referable to species now living in the 

 neighbouring ocean. From this circumstance, and from accounts 

 which he received from inhabitants of the coasts of the Both- 

 nian Gulf, he inferred that Celsius was correct in regard to a 

 gradual change of relative level. As the sea cannot sink in one 

 place vrithout falling everywhere, Von Buch concluded that cer- 

 tain parts of Sweden and Finland were slowly and insensibly, 

 rising. Mr. Lyell, together with Von Hoff and others, still 

 continued to entertain doubts with regard to the reality of this 

 phaenomenon, partly on grounds stated by former vnriters and 

 above enumerated, partly because Sweden and Norway have 

 been, within the times of history, very free from violent earth- 

 quakes, and because the elevation was said to take place not 

 suddenly and by starts, according to the analogy of the inter- 

 mittent action of earthquakes and volcanos, but slowly, con- 

 stantly, and insensibly. 



Mr. Lyell visited some part of the shores of the Bothnian 

 Gulf between Stockholm and Gefle, and of the western coast 

 of Sweden between Uddevala and Gothenburg, districts parti- 

 cularly alluded to by Celsius. He examined several of the marks 

 cut by the Swedish pilots under the direction of the Swedish 

 Academy of Sciences in 1820, and found the level of the Baltic 

 in calm weather several inches below the marks. He also found 

 the level of the waters several feet below marks made seventy or 

 a hundred years before. He obtained similar results on the 

 side of the ocean ; and fovmd in both districts that the testimony 

 of the inhabitants agreed exactly with that of their ancestors re- 

 corded by Celsius. After confirming the accounts given by Von 

 Buch of the occurrence on this side of the ocean, of elevated 

 beds of recent shells at various heights, from 10 to 200 feet, 

 Mr. Lyell added that he had also discovered deposits on the 

 side of the Bothnian Gulf, between Stockholm and Gefle, con- 



