122 GEOLOGY. 



lithodomes, the name coming from two Greek words, 

 lithos, stone, and domos, house, as these animals dwell 

 in the holes which they make in the stone. This shows 

 that the pillars were once, for a considerable time, im- 

 mersed in the sea as far as the upper limit of the rough- 

 ness, which is 23 feet. Here, then, was a depression of 

 the land, after the temple was built, to a depth of over 

 23 feet, and it was effected so gradually that the pillars 

 were left quietly standing. The subsequent elevation 

 must have occurred with the same slowness also. The 

 fact that Scotland has been raised up from 15 to 30 feet 

 since man came upon the scene is very beautifully dem- 

 onstrated by Hugh Miller in his Lectures on Geology. 

 The old coast-lines have been traced by him lying above 

 the present coast-lines, the identity between them, he re- 

 marks, being as decided as that " between two contigu- 

 ous steps of a stair, covered, the one by a patch of 

 brown and the other by a patch of green, in the pattern 

 of the stair-carpet." One of the most extensive and re- 

 markable of the gradual changes of level that have taken 

 place has been observed in Sweden and Norway. The 

 evidence^ of it having been long noticed in a rude way 

 by fishermen and pilots, men of science at length under- 

 took the investigation of it systematically, by marking 

 the rocks in different places, and observing them from 

 time to time. In this way it has been ascertained that 

 there is a rising of the land in the northern part of this 

 region, and a sinking of it in the southern part, and the 

 rate is such at some places that the movement would 

 amount to several feet in a century. And that this 

 movement has been going on for many centuries is 

 shown by the fact that such shells as are now common 

 in the Baltic Sea are found inland, beginning at the shore 

 all along up to even 400 feet above the level of the sea. 

 Other similar changes have been noticed in South Amer- 

 ica, in Greenland, and in other countries. 



207. Organic Agencies. Rocks are continually form- 



