24 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



piled in horizontal strata and layers, for example, Kinne 

 Kulle, Gotland, and Aland, but these are all of the primary 

 formation, and own none of the newer geological or vegeta- 

 ble productions. The principal ingredient of these Scandi- 

 navian horizontal strata is chalk, and as chalk has a great 

 influence on vegetation, the tracts which lie in the vicinity of 

 these chalk formations are most fruitful and rich in vegeta- 

 ble products. The land is, moreover, in many places scat- 

 tered over with erratic blocks of stone, a memento of the 

 glacial period which these countries have passed through in 

 earlier ages ; and it is a wonderful fact, probably owing to 

 volcanic agency, which is still at work, that the water is by 

 degrees receding from some part of these coasts, and the 

 land gradually rising, which on the shores of the Bothnia is 

 computed at four feet in every hundred years. This reced- 

 ing of the water gradually, however, diminishes along this 

 coast until we reach Skane, where it is no longer apparent, 

 but is again visible in Halland and Bohus Land. In the 

 south of Norway, it is computed that the land rises ten feet 

 in every hundred years. But it is a singular fact that in 

 Skane, instead of the land rising, a directly opposite phe- 

 nomenon is taking place, and on the coast around Trelleborg 

 the water is gradually encroaching upon the land. In 1 749, 

 Linnaeus measured the distance here from the water's edge 

 to the ' ' Stafsten" (a large stone set up a little west of Trel- 

 leborg), and found it to be 357 Swedish ells, and in 1847, 

 Professor Nilsson measured the same distance, and found it 

 to be only 160 ells, so that in ninety-eight years the sea 

 had encroached upon this coast 197 ells, or about four feet 

 every year. 



Nilsson, in an excellent article on the geology of Sweden, 

 comes to the conclusion that in earlier ages the Baltic was 

 all dry land, and Sweden was land-locked with the north of 

 Germany. This seems very probable from the fact of banks 

 which now lie far out in the sea at a depth of twenty to twenty- 

 six feet below the surface of the water being completely 

 composed of land and fresh water deposits. The Baltic, 

 which is surrounded by land on nearly all sides, and has its 



