March 21, 1889] 



NATURE 



489 



nf water into " abysses " in the earth. It may be pointed 

 out that the former theory could hardly be considered 

 absurd at a time when most physicists believed that 

 water could be transformed into earth ; and as to the 

 latter, we are still discussing the possibility of water being 

 •' absorbed by underlying strata." 



Celsius found an ardent supporter in Linnaeus, who, 

 returning to Swedenborg's theory, connected the decrease 

 of water with the presence of mussel-shells and petriji- 

 ita viaritia in strata now situated high above the sea. 

 .innjtus wholly rejected the theory that their presence 

 .as due to the Flood. He also held that " endless ages " 

 must have elapsed since the earth began to be inhabited 

 by plants and animals. 



The views of these two great naturalists were at first 

 iccepted and defended by a number of distinguished 

 cholars. But from 1755 they met with the warmest 

 opposition, especially from the Bishop Johan Browallius, 

 who, from the theological point of view, in a celebrated 

 and learned work refuted and condemned the theories of 

 Swedenborg, Celsius, and Linnasus. When some years 

 later Colonel Carl Fredrik Nordenskiold presented a 

 paper to the Academy further elucidating the question, 

 four years elapsed before it was published, and even then 

 a "note of apology " for its appearance was appended. 



But with the opening of the present century a new con- 

 troversy arose. The theory of the structure and history 

 of the earth had, during the preceding era, not only 

 become developed into a special science, but students 

 had already, by different opinions on certain fundamental 

 scientific points, become divided into two schools, the 

 followers of which, under a fierce, but to science bene- 

 ficial, contest, each attempted to prove their views by 

 searching old and collecting new records. Hardly had 

 this strife begun when it became evident of what import- 

 ance the old question of the rising of the land or the fall 

 of the sea would be for the determination of the matters 

 in dispute. One of the founders of the plutonic school, 

 John Playfair, in 1802 advanced the theory of a connec- 

 tion between the rising of the land in Sweden and the 

 volcanic forces in the interior of the earth, and some 

 years later this view was further developed by the most 

 ardent and gifted champion of plutonism, Leopold von 

 Buch, who himself had had the opportunity during a 

 journey in Scandinavia, 1805-6, by personal observations 

 and by intercourse with Swedish men of science, of 

 learning that at all events most of the observations on 

 which the assumption of a change in the sea-level of the 

 Baltic were founded had been carried out with the 

 ^greatest care and conscientiousness. 



Some of the opposite views, on the contrary, were re- 

 vived, after a careful study of the literature appertaining 

 thereto, by K. E. A. von Hoff, in an excellent work 

 printed in 1822, entitled " Geschichte der durch Ueber- 

 lieferung nachgewiesenen natiirlichen Veriinderungen 

 der Erdoberfliiche " ; but it should be added that the 

 ■views defended in this work were retracted, twelve years 

 later, after a careful discussion of the researches respect- 

 :ing the land rising carried out in 1820-21 by Herr N. 

 Bruncrona, Director of the Swedish Pilot Service, and 

 the observations of Lieut.-Colonel C. P. Hiillstrom, re- 

 corded in the Proceedings of the Academy in 1822. 

 Hoff then acknowledged that the theory of the rising of 

 ahe land formed one of the most important and in- 

 rstructive parts of modern geological science. Hiillstrom, 

 by the way, demonstrated that a considerable rising of 

 the land takes place on the east as well as the west 

 •coast of Sweden, that the rising differs in magnitude in 

 various localities, and that no rising exists on the coasts 

 ■of Halland and Scania in the extreme south. 



At this stage of the discussion, the closing word was 

 -spoken by the famous English geologist Lyell. He had 

 at first doubted the assertion of the rising of the Scan- 

 <iinavian peninsula, but having, in the summer of 1834, 



paid a visit to Sweden for the purpose of investigating 

 the question, having examined many of the statements 

 bearing upon it, and having obtained valuable infor- 

 mation from Berzelius and others, he published, in the 

 following year, a paper in the Transactions of the Philo- 

 sophical Society, entitled '' On the Proofs of the Gradual 

 Rising of the Land in Certain Parts of Sweden." In 

 this paper Lyell accepts unhesitatingly the views held by 

 the Swedish men of science. He especially points out 

 the theoretically important and instructive fact (already, 

 however, demonstrated by Hallstrom) that the rising 

 varies much in different localities, and even that in some 

 places in Southern Sweden no rise has taken place within 

 historical times. Lyell's paper remained the final word 

 upon this question for a long time, during which no oppo- 

 sition was raised to the fundamental principle. Efforts, 

 however, were made by fresh measurements on the 

 Swedish coast, to obtain fuller material for research, 

 valuable contributions being rendered by Sven Nilson, 

 P. A. Siljestrom, A. Erdmann, Sven Lovdn, J. G. Fors- 

 hammar, G. Lindstrom, Lord Selkirk, A. G. Nathorst, 

 and others. From these new researches it became evident 

 that it was often difficult to establish harmony between 

 observations made in places very close to each other, a 

 circumstance which indicated that the phenomenon was 

 far more complicated than at first supposed, and which 

 again threw some doubt upon the matter, and caused 

 fresh opposition. Even Lyell himself, in the eleventh 

 edition of his " Principles of Geology," published in 1872, 

 speaks with far less confidence of the land rising ; and 

 in a newly published important work the celebrated Aus- 

 trian Professor, Suess, wholly denies the rising as well as 

 local changes of the shore-lines. The old view of Urban 

 Hjarne is adopted, viz. that the Baltic may be considered 

 a lake, in which the height of the water chiefly depends 

 upon the proportion between the water conveyed into it 

 and the water lost by evaporation and outflow. Space 

 does not permit me to enter further into the ingenious 

 arguments of the eminent Austrian geologist. Hardly 

 had his work left the press before the views advanced 

 were refuted by Dr. Holmstrom in an elaborate paper, 

 published in the Transactions of the Royal Swedish 

 Academy. 



Holmstrom's researches were begun in 1867 at the in- 

 stigation of Prof. Otto Torell, so that his paper is founded 

 upon studies extending over a period of thirty years. 

 During that time Dr. Holmstrom, partly at the ex- 

 pense of the Pilot Service, visited and re-measured most 

 of the old water-marks along the coast of Sweden. New 

 ones have also been cut in the rocks, and for the guidance 

 of future researches the old as well as the new markings 

 have been carefully drawn and described. 



The following important synopsis is the result of 

 Dr. Holmstrom's prolonged studies. 



The twenty-four hydrographical rock-marks along the 

 west coast of Sweden show that the land in that part has 

 risen about o"5 centimetre during the last half-century. 

 The rising is incontestable, but varies in different locali- 

 ties, amounting, for instance, at Nordkoster, to almost 

 nothing, but at the Viidero to more than i metre in the 

 century. 



This result of the west coast researches is very im- 

 portant, inasmuch as no doubt can be entertained that 

 the average water-level there corresponds with that of 

 the North Sea, and that the rising of the land thus 

 demonstrated cannot possibly be caused by a gradual fall 

 of the water in the, Baltic. 



The two rock-marks on the south coast also indicate 

 a rising during recent years, but as the time between the 

 registration and the cutting of the marks is hardly twenty 

 years, this proof cannot be accepted with certainty. 



On the east coast of Sweden, as far as Stockholm, 

 some twenty water-marks have been examined, and here, 

 too, a rising is perceptible in most places, but at Siifvo 



