234 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 



In these cases the depression has been attributed to. the 

 yielding of the earth's crust to the superimposed weight of 

 a deposit of earthy matter brought down by rivers, and 

 carried thither by oceanic currents, and the elevation to 

 the internal compression which is thus occasioned. 



What is alleged in regard to Finland is, that while the 

 ice covered deep the land, this must have been by the 

 superincumbent weight depressed below what is its present 

 altitude above the level of the sea ; and that as this became 



first beneath the surface of the waters, and by continuation of the same mysterious 

 workings of Nature, afterwards deeper and deeper in the sea. The process, as usual 

 with mighty operations, being eminently slow and gradual, contains nothing to disturb 

 the labours of the tiny architects who had, in the shape of a fringe, laid the foundation 

 of their wall. Ever as the island sank, their edifice would rise to the surface ; on the dis- 

 appearance of dry land in its interior, it would first assume the aspect of a circle of coral ; 

 and this, ever added to with perseverance the most marvellous, might, through all 

 future ages, preserve its crest on a level with the waves, although the solid land that 

 constitutes its base had long disappeared among the, profoundest depths of the ocean. 

 But the explanation, which thus meets every difficulty in the case of a single atoll, can 

 account for their diffusion over any extent, or in whatever numbers. Suppose, for 

 instance, that these islands of ours had, in the course of the mutability of Nature, passed 

 through their epoch of stability, and were now slowly subsiding. In the course of cen- 

 turiestheir mainland having sunk under the confluence of the Atlantic and German 

 Oceans there would remain, of their present greatness, only a number of islets, con 

 stituted by our mountains, around which we may fancy coral fringes to begin to grow. 

 Now subsidence continuing the lowest peaks would first disappear, bequeathing only 

 an atoll as their memorial, and although Ben Nevis might remain for centuries longer, 

 with its crest above the waters, it, too, would be submerged, and we should have no 

 other trace of its existence. The area of Great Britain would thus be changed into a 

 sea of circles of coral, presenting, in miniature, what exists at present over an immense 

 expanse of the Pacific. The conclusion, however strange, seems irresistible. Occupying 

 that mighty area, in length, according to Darwin, 4500 miles, and now filled only by 

 these atolls and a few groups of islets (summits of mountains not yet wholly submerged) 

 a majestic continent must have existed, and taken part in the history of the Earth's 

 evolutions, during epochs comparatively recent ; and of all the gorgeous life and lofty 

 activities which must have thronged it, there remains but the incessant working of 

 these infinitesimal creatures, whose structures so emphatically indicate the place of its 

 tomb. 



' But other features of those seas are equally pregnant ; and we must peruse them ere 

 the picture can be complete. Whilst immense and uninterrupted tracts are character- 

 ised by the exclusive presence of these atolls, many in their neighbourhood exhibit a 

 totally different character. They are occupied, also, by islands ; but, among them the 

 coral rocks abound in the interior, often rising in terraces as we proceed inward, until 

 we follow them almost to the tops of the highest interior elevations. Now it cannot 

 for a moment be doubted that these corals were formed under the only condition in 

 which corals can be formed, viz., below the surface of the waves ; and knowing of 

 energies manifested in the volcanos, which can rend the solid earth, and force 

 large mountains through its crevices, the inference is easy, that these islands must 

 have been elevated, and, as indicated by the terraces, perhaps gradually, from a former 

 inferior level. But this inference is rather sustained and its significance extended by 

 two important facts : First, as in the previous case, the symptoms of elevation exclu- 

 sively characterise large isolated tracts, being, for the most part, unmixed except at 

 their margin, by symptoms of depression, so that we cannot refer them to partial eleva- 

 ting movements, but to an action including great areas within its range ; and this is 

 confirmed by the circumstances, that to these areas our clearest evidence of the energy 

 of a protruding or upheaving force from below, viz., the volcano, is at present confined. 



