264 THE WORLD. 



At the present moment the land is again subsiding and in th 

 same gentle manner. 



What was once deemed an encroachment, or rather a rise in 

 the level of the sea, is now well understood to be but the move- 

 ment of the coast, gently subsiding, this fact is well illustrated by 

 the movement of land in Sweden, which is now, and has been 

 for ages in course of elevation in some places, and depression in 

 others, rising in the northern, and sinking in the southern parts. 

 The proof of this great change, which had long been suspected, 

 was complete upon examining the marks cut upon the rocks by 

 the officers of the pilotage establishment of Sweden. It was 

 found that in the space of fourteen years, the rise had been from 

 four to five inches. The prevalence of marine shells, at some 

 distance in the interior, of the same species as those now living 

 in the neighboring seas, renders in highly probable that this rise 

 has been going on for a long time, in certain portions of that 

 country. The rocks of the coasts of Norway and Sweden, are 

 pricipally gneiss, mica-schist, and quartz, and will retain their 

 particular configuration or appearance unaltered for a long series 

 of years, there seems therefore, but little room for any doubt as to 

 the change of level of the land and sea, determined by the an- 

 cient landmarks, the appearance of new shoals, the elevation of 

 the lines cut to mark the height of the water years previous, and 

 the abundant occurrence of marine shells attached to the rocks 

 at the distance of even fifty miles from the sea coast. From some 

 phenomena occurring near Stockholm, it would seem that the 

 land has been depressed and then re-elevated. In the year 1819, 

 in digging a canal at Sodertelje, a place sixteen miles south of 

 Stockholm, for the purpose of uniting Lake Maeler with the Bal- 

 tic, at a depth of sixty feet, the workmen came upon what ap- 

 peared to have been a buried fishing-hut, constructed of wood, it 

 was in a state of decomposition, and crumbled away on exposure 

 to the air. On the floor of the hut, which was in better preserva- 

 tion, was a fire-place composed of a ring of stones, within which 

 were found cinders and charred wood, and outside were boughs 

 of fir, still retaining the leaves and bearing the marks of the axe. 

 Besides the hut, several vessels of an antique form were found, 



