CHAP. Hi. UPRAISED STRATA IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 57 



are now sixty feet higher than the surface of the Baltic. In 

 the neighbourhood of these recent strata, both to the north 

 west and south of Stockholm, other deposits similar in mineral 

 composition occur, which ascend to greater heights, in which 

 precisely the same assemblage of fossil shells is met with, but 

 without any intermixture, so far as is yet known, of human 

 bones or fabricated articles. 



On the opposite or western coast of Sweden, at Uddevalla, 

 post-tertiary strata, containing recent shells, not of that 

 brackish water character peculiar to the Baltic, but such as 

 now live in the Northern Ocean, ascend to the height of 

 200 feet; and beds of clay and sand of the same age attain 

 elevations of 300 and even 600 feet in Norway, where they 

 have been usually described as ' raised beaches.' They are, 

 however, thick deposits of submarine origin, spreading far 

 and wide, and filling valleys in the granite and gneiss, just 

 as the tertiary formations, in different parts of Europe, cover 

 or fill depressions in the older rocks. 



Although the fossil fauna characterising these upraised 

 sands and clays consists exclusively of existing northern 

 species of testacea, it is more than probable that they may 

 not all belong to that division of the post-tertiary strata 

 which we are now considering. If the contemporary mam 

 malia were known, they would, in all likelihood, be found to 

 be referable, at least in part, to extinct species ; for, according 

 to Loven (an able living naturalist of Norway), the species 

 do not constitute such an assemblage as now inhabits corre 

 sponding latitudes in the Grerman Ocean. On the contrary, 

 they decidedly represent a more arctic fauna. In order to 

 find the same species nourishing in equal abundance, or in 

 many cases to find them at all, we must go northwards to 

 higher latitudes than Uddevalla in Sweden, or even nearer 

 the pole than Central Norway. 



Judging by the uniformity of climate now prevailing from 



