156 EVIDENCE OF SUBSIDENCE. 



This inference is sustained by observations made on the coast of 

 Peru, near Lima, in the island of San Lorenzo, where, thirty yards 

 above the level of the sea, deposits have been found which contain 

 woven osier, portions of cotton thread, &c., clearly showing that the 

 deposits in question were formed since the existence of man in 

 those countries; as the level of seas has not changed since history 

 began, it is only by upheaval they could be brought to light. 



That the coast of Sweden has been uplifted slowly, has been established 

 by the most exact observations. In digging a canal near Stockholm, in the 

 midst of beds of sand, clay, arid murl, filled with shells similar to those that 

 now live in the Baltic, there were found the remains of very ancient ves- 

 sels ; all this country, which must have been, at some period, under water, 

 and in which some ships were wrecked, has been upheaved since the pre- 

 sence of man ; the level of the ocean being invariable. It is therefore evi- 

 dent that the shelly deposit of Uddewalla, in which organic remains of the 

 Baltic are found, seventy yards above the level of the sea, and in which M. 

 Brongniurt found bulani attached to rocks, as they are on the present coast, 

 is a fact of elevation. Similar deposits and evidence of elevation arc met in 

 other parts of the world. The upheaval and subsidence of the temple of 

 Sera pis has been already mentioned (page 19). 



In thus admitting that very extensive deposits, formed of shells that are 

 now living in the sea, have been evidently upheaved to greater or less heights, 

 is it not therefore exceedingly probable that the same is true of all the rest ? 

 Why should this not be true in regard to the neighbourhood of London and 

 Paris; to that of the plains of Gascony, Austria, Hungary, Poland, &,c. ? 

 All the shells found in those places are not similar to those in the pre- 

 sent seas ; but there exists a considerable quantity of them, and moreover, 

 their preservation is so perfect, in many places, that they seem to have been 

 recently buried. If we admit the fact of elevation, for these deposits, can 

 we refuse it to the chalk that everywhere envelopes them, forming not only 

 the Jura, but a great part of the calcareous mountains of France ; or to any 

 shell-deposits, the organic debris of which bear witness to their marine 

 origin ? 



9. Subsidence of various deposits. Upheaval has been shown ; 

 subsidence is not less demonstrable. At many points, on the coasts 

 of France and England, may be seen, at low tide, very extensive 

 deposits of plants, similar to those now living in those countries, 

 and which appear to have grown on the spot where they are found, 

 for the roots are seen attached to the soil. These deposits rest on 

 earthy matter, covered with leaves, heaped upon each other, or 

 sunk in a peat-like substance. In these places have been found 

 birch-trees, chestnuts, oaks, and fir-trees, sometimes scarcely 

 altered, species of deer, similar to those met in peat-bogs; the 

 whole covered by argillaceous deposits, which contain fresh-water 

 shells. These submarine, forests, as they are called, could have 

 grown only on a soil more or less elevated above the sea ; and as 

 they are now found beneath it, and are not uncovered, except in 

 unusually low tides, the earth must have sunk, after the period of 

 rogetation. The dirt-bed of Portland (Jig. 225, p. 145) shows the 



9. What are submarine forests ? How is the subsidence of deposits 

 proved 7 



