SEESAW MOVEMENT. 341 



motion of the soil is from east to west, the appearance 

 of the phenomenon is that of a seesaw movement; 

 tlie north rises and the south subsides. 



New islands have appeared in the Gulfs of Bothnia 

 and Finland :* if this should continue for two thousand 

 yeais, the Gulf of Tornea will become a lake, like those 

 which occupy the depressions in the granite all over 

 Finland ; and eighteen hundred years later, Stock- 

 holm will be united to this province by the Isles of 

 Aland, transformed into an isthmus. 



Sir Roderick Murchison first noticed, in 1845, the 

 existence of a line, around which the surface of 

 Scandinavia appeared to turn; but the honour of 

 first demonstrating the movements of the land in 

 Sweden belongs to the Swedish naturalist, Celsius, 

 who lived at the commencement of the last century. 

 He published his opinion that the level of the Baltic 

 and of the North Sea gradually fell ; and the result 

 of a large number of observations was to settle the 

 amount of this subsidence at about one yard in a 

 century. The rocks on the borders of the Baltic 

 and the ocean, which had formerly been the hidden 

 cause of much disaster to vessels, showed in his time 

 above the level of the water. The fact that terra 

 firma gained continually on the waters of the Gulf of 

 Bothnia, was proved by the existence of many ancient 



 See " Les Oscillations de I'dcorce terrestre," by M. H^ert. 



