334 Geological Society. 
the sea, and among them mussels which retained their blue colour, 
and emit a strong animal odour when thrown into the fire. 
I shall now turn from the modern changes observed in South 
America to the evidences of recent alterations in the level of the 
land in high latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Dr. Pingel, a 
Danish mineralogist and naturalist, has communicated some facts 
showing the gradual sinking of part of the west coast of Greenland, 
It is now more than fifty years since Arctander inferred that this 
coast had subsided, having noticed some buildings in the Firth 
called Igalliko, on a low rocky island near the shore, almost en- 
tirely submerged at spring tides. From this point, which is in lat. 
60° 43! north, to Disco bay, extending to nearly the 69th degree of 
north latitude, Dr. Pingel has traced various signs of the depression 
of the land, ancient settlements of the Greenlanders and Moravians 
being now overflowed by the sea. In one case the Moravians were 
obliged to move inland the poles upon which their large boats were 
set, and the old poles still remain beneath the water as silent wit- 
nesses of the change. It is also mentioned that no aboriginal Green- 
lander builds his hut near the water’s edge. Having conversed with 
Dr. Pingel, at Copenhagen, on this subject, I am convinced that the 
phenomena cannot be explained away by reference to a rise of the 
tides at particular points, the advance of the sea being general for 
more than 600 miles from north to south, and caused not by the 
undermining of cliffs and the denudation of land, but by submers 
gence of what was before above water. 
I am the less inclined to question the probability of a general sub- 
sidence of the land in Greenland, because I now believe that an 
equally slow and gradual movement is taking place, but in an oppo- 
site direction, throughout a large part of Sweden and Finland. I 
ventured formerly to controvert the proofs adduced in favour of 
such an upheaval of land in those countries, although the fact had 
been advocated by Celsius, the Swede, and in later times by Play- 
fair and Von Buch. But after visiting, in 1834, several parts both 
of the eastern and western coasts of Sweden, I became satisfied that 
an elevation is in progress, more rapid at Stockholm than further to 
the south, and greater at Gefle than at Stockholm. The rate of 
rise appears in some places to have amounted only to a few inches 
in a century, in other places to several feet, but as far as I could 
learn from the report of pilots, travellers, fishermen, and traders, 
the alteration extends to the North Cape, and is probably felt over 
a space more than 1000 miles in length from north to south, and 
several hundred miles in breadth. The evidence is derived from 
many sources, partly from tradition and from the recollection of 
the oldest inhabitants and seafaring men, partly from the position 
of ancient buildings on the coast, and partly from marks chiselled 
at different periods on rocks bordering the sea, for the express 
purpose of indicating the ancient standard level of the waters. As 
the details of my own observations have been published in the 
Philosophical Transactions of last year*, I need only add that at one 
* [See Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag., vol. vi. p. 297.] 
