CRUST AL MOVEMENTS 183 



United States, in the West Indies, on the west coast of South Amer- 

 ica, and in other places. In North Greenland very fresh shells are 

 found in shore sand up to heights of 100 to 200 feet above the sea. 

 We conclude that the sand in which they are found was beneath the 

 sea but a short time ago. Darwin long ago found shells, etc., along 

 the west coast of South America up to elevations of 1,300 feet above 

 the sea. On the coast of Peru a coral reef is said to be found at an 

 elevation of nearly 3,000 feet, and on the coast of New Hebrides 

 and Cuba they are found up to heights of 1,000 feet or more. 



4. Beaches, terraces (Fig. 156), and sea cliffs (p. 154) near the 

 shore, but above the level of the sea, also show a rise of the land or 

 a sinking of the sea. Such features are found along many coasts. 

 In California and Scotland, some towns are built on the elevated 

 shore terraces, and wagon-roads and railroads follow them for con- 

 siderable distances. One of the significant facts about many 

 elevated beaches, and other shore features, is that they are no longer 

 horizontal, as they must have been when formed. They were 

 warped as they rose above the sea, or as the sea sank below them. 



All these phenomena are evidence that areas once covered by 

 the sea have emerged in recent times. The emergence of the land 

 might be explained in either of two ways: (1) by the rise of the 

 land, or (2) by the sinking of the sea-level. 



Relative sinking of coastal lands. .1. At the east end of the 

 island of Crete, ancient buildings are under water. On some parts 

 of the coast of Greenland, too, various human structures built on 

 land are now beneath the water. The southern end of Scandinavia 

 has been sinking recently, while the rest of the peninsula appears 

 to have been rising. " At Malmo, one of the present streets is over- 

 flooded by the waters of the Baltic when the wind is high, and ex- 

 cavations made some years ago disclosed an ancient street at a 

 depth of eight feet below the present one." 



2. Along some coasts there are drowned forests. Thus north 

 of Liverpool, England, when the tide is out, numerous stumps may 

 be seen standing on the beach where the trees once grew (Fig. 179). 

 Since trees of the kind represented by these stumps do not grow 

 in salt water, we conclude that the land where they grew has sunk 

 below the level of high water since the trees grew. On the coast 



