16 MR. LYELL ON THE PROOFS OF A GRADUAL RISING OF 



successive rise of the land ; or in other words, during the gradual conversion of part 

 of the gulf into land. I conceive that they may have been formed in those tracts 

 where a marine current, flowing as now, during the spring when the ice and snow 

 melt, from north to south, came in contact with flooded rivers rushing from the con- 

 tinent, or from the west, charged with gravel, sand, and mud. According to this 

 view, these large Swedish ridges may be compared to smaller banks known to have 

 been formed within the last five or six centuries on the eastern coast of England, at 

 points where a prevailing marine current from the north meets rivers descending from 

 the interior, or from the east. In such situations the river, instead of entering the 

 sea in a straight line, is deflected at a right angle, and runs from north to south 

 between the land and the new-formed sand-bank. The deep narrow breaches which 

 occasionally occur in many of these ridges in Sweden, precisely resemble those which 

 a flooded river or an inundation from the sea sometimes makes through our smaller 

 banks above alluded to. If this explanation be admitted, I conceive that the steep 

 escarpments often presented on both sides of the oasar or ridges of sand, may be almost 

 entirely due to their original form, and not to subsequent denudation. As to the 

 manner in which the erratic blocks have been lodged on the highest parts of these 

 sand-banks, I fully adopt the opinion of those who believe them to have been carried 

 by ice, respecting the agency of which I shall have more to say in another place. 



The low meadows near the town of Upsala are not many feet above the level of Lake 

 Maeler, the most northern arm of which reaches near to that place, which is distant 

 about fifty miles from Sodertelje, before alluded to, at the south-eastern extremity 

 of the same lake. If the opinion, therefore, of the rise of the land be well founded, 

 the whole of Lake Maeler, and the low lands adjoining, must have been covered 

 with salt water at no very remote period in history. Professor Wahlenberg pointed 

 out to me a meadow to the south of Upsala in which the Glaux maritima and the 

 Triglochin maritimus now flourish, plants which inhabit salt marshes bordering the 

 sea. These same species have, it is true, been found in the interior of Germany and 

 France near saline springs ; but in the country of Upsala there are no salt springs ; 

 and this botanical phenomenon seems to confirm the opinion that the salt waters 

 have only receded in very modern times from these lands, and that the rains have not 

 yet had time to dissolve and wash away all the salt which may have been originally 

 precipitated when this tract was laid dry. 



Oregrund. 

 The next region which I examined was the coast near Oregrund, a port about forty 

 miles north-east of Upsala. During the survey of 1820, before alluded to, a mark was 

 made near this place on the rocky cliffs of Graso, a long narrow island which lies op- 

 posite to Oregrund. On my visit to this island I was accompanied by Lieut. Olof 

 Flumen, a gentleman of the pilotage establishment, who cut the mark in 1820. It 

 is much to be regretted that neither he nor any other observer, as far as I could learn. 



