OF THE SEA AND LAND, 51 



that the sea line is, on the whole, lowering, in the places 

 at least where those remarks have been made., it has 

 been concluded, by some, that while the Mediterranean 

 was rising, the Baltic, and the northern seas in general, 

 were falling ; and, by others, that there was a general 

 diminution of the quantity of the ocean. The de- 

 pression of the sea line in the Baltic, as stated by Frisi, 

 amounts to thirteen Swedish feet in the last five cen- 

 turies. On our own shores, though appearing to be 

 again rising, it once possessed a much greater elevation : 

 and thus marine remains are found in many places far 

 inland, and also far above the level of the present sea. 

 In the Firth of Forth, this perpendicular difference is 

 said to amount to more than thirty feet : the inland 

 part of the submerged forest of Lincolnshire is a fact 

 of the same nature, and similar ones have been observed 

 at Dunkirk and on other parts of the opposise coast. 

 These changes must have arisen from causes analogous 

 to those acting in the Mediterranean ; the sea line 

 having been depressed, because the land was raised, 

 not the sea lowered. The sea of these channels could 

 not have been lowered thirty feet, without some general 

 diminution of the ocean ; and the marks of this must 

 therefore have been visible in many more places, or 

 perhaps all over the world. I need not dwell on a 

 solution so simple, and supported by so many other 

 facts ; but I must remind the reader of the connexion 

 between these vacillations of the land, and the pheno- 

 mena belonging to some of the tertiary deposits ; while 

 they prove what I formerly suggested, that even at 

 considerable vertical elevations above the present ocean, 

 many of those to which vast mystery has been attached, 

 may be only the bottom of the present sea ; demanding 

 none of those imaginary " retreats," and so forth, with 

 which vain speculators have encumbered themselves. 



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