440 Scientific Intelligence. — Geology. 



ty of Sweaberg, there is to be observed, on a fixed rock which 

 has the name of Witheller, a loose reposing stone of conside- 

 rable size, which, seen at a distance, is so strikingly like a seal, 

 that the sailors of the expedition gave it that name. The 

 height of its position is about three fathoms above the level of 

 the sea. The inhabitants of the coast assert that the stone now 

 described first made its appearance in the year 1814 or 1815. 

 The second instance is especially curious from this circum- 

 stance, that the inhabitants of the coast declare that they aie 

 able to recognise the stone perfectly, and that thus they can 

 prove a journey of 250 fathoms, or half a verst, in one winter. 

 The block in question reposes at present on another larger one. 

 Its transpoi't took place about the year 1806 or 1807; and it 

 is also in the neighbourhood of Kittelholm that it occurs, but 

 on the opposite side from the first-mentioned block. These 

 notices are not unimportant for the theory of the distribution 

 of the granite blocks of the north, although they are just as 

 insufficient to explain the phenomena as a whole, as are all the 

 other known examples of the wanderings of stones that have 

 taken place in historical times. They are also of importance 

 in lending strength to the conviction, that only marks cut in 

 the fixed rock can afford sure data respecting the changes of 

 the level of the sea, in relation to the surface of the land.* 



9. Raised Beaches at Coquimbo. — In a letter lately received 

 from Mr Pentland, H. M. Consul-General in Bolivia, and 

 dated Tacna, Peru, September 3. 1837, he says : " I had occa- 

 sion to observe at Coquimbo, raised beaches on a very large 

 scale, and attaining an elevation of 400 to 500 feet above the 

 present sea-level. They consist of beds of sea-sand, alternat- 

 ing with others, exclusively formed of large oysters, and in 

 general capped by a mass of boulders and gravel, some of the 

 former weighing several tons, and covered with parasitic ma- 

 rine mollusca. It is this modern marine deposit which forms 

 the parallel roads spoken of by Captain Hall, and referred to 

 by Lyell, and has evidently been raised at a very modern 



• An interesting account of a travelled stone, by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, 

 Bart., is contained in the Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History So- 

 ciety, vol. iii. p. 251. 



