247 

 PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



VOL. II. 1849-50. No. 36. 



Sixty-Eighth Session. 



Monday, 3d December 1849. 



Hon. Lord MURRAY, V.P., in the Chair. 



The following Communication was read : — 



1. Personal Observations on Terraces, and other proofs of 

 Changes in the relative Level of Sea and Land in Scan- 

 dinavia. By Robert Chambers, Esq., F.R.S.E., &;c. 



In this paper were given descriptions of alluvial formations of a 

 terassiform character in the valley of the Lir river, near Draninien, 

 in Norway, and of similar objects in valleys near the foot of the 

 Miosen lake. The author then described a remarkable terrace which 

 runs for fully fourteen miles at one elevation along the upper part 

 of the valley of the Logan, in the Dovre field. It is composed on 

 the left side of the valley of water-laid sand, and is believed to be 

 about 2150 feet above the level of the sea. On the Dovre field, 

 several hundred feet higher, are morasses containing the remains of 

 much greater trees than are now growing in that district, the highest 

 vegetation of which is a dwarf birch ; and Mr Chambers remarks, 

 that when the terrace was on the sea-level this district would enjoy 

 a temperature fit for the production of such large timber. Mr 

 Chambers next described some remarkable terraces in the valleys 

 near Trondhiem, and particularly the great terrace of erosion which 

 overlooks that city at an elevation of 622 feet above the sea. 



The remainder of the paper was chiefly devoted to an account of 

 a remarkable couple of terraces, which are traceable along the coasts 

 of Nordlands and Finmark, apparently at one level (57 and 143 

 feet above the sea), excepting in the sounds near Hammerfest ; 

 where, throughout a space of twenty-five miles, they are upon an 



VOL. II. Z 



