NATURE IN MOTION. 41 



rate of from throe to live feet a century, whilst south 

 of this line, it is sinking in proportion. Some villages 

 in southern Scania are now three hundred feet nearer to 

 the Baltic than they were in the days of Linnaeus, who 

 measured the distance a hundred years ago. Historical 

 evidence abounds as to this mysterious movement of a 

 whole continent ; the coasts of Norway and England 

 bear, moreover, ample proof on their surface. Nearly 

 six hundred feet above the actual level, long, clear lines 

 of the former level may be seen, distinctly marked by 

 horizontal layers of shells, not of extinct species, but of 

 such as are still found in the adjoining waters. As we 

 go further south, the land seems to sink : all along the 

 coast of Germany and Holland legends and traditions are 

 found, speaking of lost cities and inundated provinces. 

 The Germans have their songs of the great city of 

 Iduna, in the Northern Sea, the bells of whose churches 

 may still be heard, in dream-like knelling, on a quiet, 

 calm Sabbath-day; and in Holland they tell of the 

 steeples and towers that can be seen in clear weather, 

 far down in the Zuyder Sea. Stern reality shows that 

 these are not idle inventions; it is well-known that great 

 cities, large islands, and whole provinces have actually 

 been engulfed, and in both countries man is even now 

 incessantly at work to protect the sinking shore against 

 the encroaching waves. In Greenland, the level changes 

 so much, and the ocean intrudes so fast, that the Mora- 

 vian settlers had more than once to move the poles to 

 which they moored their boats, nearer inland. On the 

 low, rocky islands around, and on the mainland itself, 



