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On the Geology of the Baltic. 
The following observations in Mr R. Chambers’s graphic 
account of his journey through Scandinavia, now in course 
of publication, being on generally interesting geological to- 
pics, will, we doubt not, be prized by our readers. 
1. Sir Charles Lyell’s imaginary depression and elevation of the 
Land near Stockholn,—and Professor Playfair’s hypothesis of 
the rising of the Land in Scandinavia. 
I found rather a small vessel; no saloon besides the spiese-kammer 
(eating-room), and only a double series of small cabins, each with 
two beds, running transversely to the length of the vessel, with a 
narrow space between. Starting at an early hour on Sunday morn- 
ing, we in a few hours passed through the Sodertelje Canal into the 
open sea, The passage was the scene of a very remarkable antiqua- 
rian discovery, to which Sir Charles Lyell alludes in his paper in 
the ‘ Philosophical Transactions” on the movements of the Baltic 
shores. Jt seems that this canal required a cutting of more than 
sixty feet through soft matter between two lines of rocky ground. 
In the course of that cutting the workmen found, at the depth of 
sixty feet, and at the level of the sea, the remains of an ancient hut, 
There were a floor and a hearth—distinct traces of its having been 
a human habitation. Sir Charles tells us, that the superincumbent 
matter was composed of a marine formation. He says, “ the stra- 
tification of the mass over the house was very decided, but for the 
most part of that wavy and irregular kind which would result from 
a meeting of currents.’ His theory is thus expressed :—“ It ap- 
pears that this building must have been submerged beneath the waters 
of the Baltic to the depth of sixty-four feet ; and before it was raised 
again to its present position, it had become covered with strata more 
than sixty feet thick.’’ 
To imagine that the land at this place can have been sunk sixty- 
four feet since it was first inhabited by man, is a supposition so vio- 
lent, that only the most incontestable evidence could justify its being 
advanced. There could not only be strong positive evidence for the 
assumed fact, but there should be no other way of accounting for it. 
Now, are we quite sure that there is no other way of accounting for 
the existence of a human habitation below sixty feet of soft matter 
in that situation? I find in Mr Laing’s work on Sweden a remark- 
able passage. Speaking of the branch of the Maeler Lake, out of 
which this short canal proceeds, he says: ‘ It was in this branch 
of the Maeler, if I am not mistaken, that St Olaf, when a viking, 
was penned up on one of his piratical expeditions, in the eleventh 
