On the Geology of the Baltic. 353 
clenched by the actually observed uprise of a large tract in Chili in 
1820, and by the ascertained rising and falling in recent times of a 
part of the coast of Naples. I readily admitted to Professor Lovén 
the value of the facts observed with respect to the level of the Bal- 
tic, the force of Playfair’s remark, and the importance of the obser- 
‘vations in South America and Italy. Still, I said, there was a 
source of possible fallacy open regarding the level of the Baltic, which 
I was surprised had not as yet been thought of. The Baltic was an 
inland sea, and it was ascertained that inland seas do not always 
maintain the same mean level as the outer ocean. It was remark- 
able that not one of the observations of the Scandinavian investiga- 
tors, nor of those instituted by Prefessor Johnston and Sir Charles 
Lyell, was made beyond the space within which the inland and tideless 
character of this sea prevails. As cases shewing the inequality in 
question, reference may be made to the Red Sea, found by M. Lepere 
to be 263 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. The Mediter- 
ranean itself has been set down by a French surveying party as 
within 2 feet of the level of the ocean at Amsterdam—a difference 
too small to have any stress laid upon it; but it is a startling fact 
that three different surveys of the most rigid character assigned dif- 
ferences between the levels of the Adriatic and Mediterranean, re- 
volving a very little way from a mean of 83 metres, or about 26 
feet, the Adriatic, being, like the Red Sea, at the superior height.* 
Considering, indeed, ae nature of this evidence, we cannot be rigidly 
certain that these differences are as they appear. They are, how- 
ever, sufficient to give us reason for supposing that the Baltic—the 
throat of a vast number of rivers (the fifth part of Europe is drained 
into it), and furnished with but narrow communications towards the 
‘outer ocean—may heretofore have been kept up at a somewhat higher 
level than the ocean; a condition to which its temperate clime is of 
course favourable. From changes in the natural drainage of the 
basin, whether from variations of climate or otherwise, trum a clear- 
ing of the channels of communication, or some other local causes, the 
abnormal level may be diminishing, and hence it may be that so 
many parts are shallowing, and so many rocks formerly submerged 
are coming above the surface. All this is purely hypothetical ; Tt Dut 
I submitted to Mr Lovén that it makes out a case for inquiry, be- 
cause it is not comfortable to sit down with a conclusion on a scien- 
tifie subject while any source of fallacy stands yawning behind us. 
.. ® Humboldt’s Asie Centrale, ii. 301. 
. t It must also be admitted that the shallowing of the Bultic is only an- 
nounced in some parts of the coast, not in all. The whole of the German shore, 
for. instance, is said to betray no mark of change. I do not, however, feel 
assured that this partial exhibition of the phenomena as respects locality a well 
established, 
VOL. XLVIII.— NO. XCVI. APRIL: b850. “ 
