THE LAND IN CERTAIN PARTS OF SWEDEN. 



17 



had visited these spots since the marks were made. No place could have been better 

 chosen for the purpose : the letters and lines, which are still as fresh as if newly 

 made, have been cut upon the vertical face of a cliff of gneiss, which is free from 

 lichens, and which plunges to the depth of about three fathoms perpendicularly be- 

 neath the water. I subjoin a sketch 



(fig. 9.) which I made of the rock and 

 mark as they appeared on the 1st of 

 July 1834. A vein of granite, com- 

 posed of felspar and quartz, traverses 

 the gneiss in an oblique direction above 

 tlie mark. The rock is stated by Brun- 

 CRONA to be in latitude 60° 18' N. It 

 is situated at the south of Strandtorpet 

 and north of Karingsundet. The length 

 of the horizontal line is twenty inches 

 and a half; the figures express that 

 the mark was cut on the 13th day of 



Fig. 9. 



Mark at Graso near Oregrund. 



the ninth month (September) in the year 1820, and the runic letters at the beginning 

 and end of the line are the initials of Olof Flumen. 



At the above date the horizontal line was exactly at the level of the sea on a calm 

 day, when the water was supposed to be at its standard level. When I visited the 

 place on the 1st of July 1834, the line was five inches and a half above the surface of 

 the water ; and Lieutenant Flumen and the seamen thought that a slight wind which 

 was then blowing from the north-north-west, directly down the sound between Ore- 

 grund and Graso, caused the water to be an inch or two higher than it would have 

 been had the sea been as perfectly calm as on the day preceding my visit. 1 found 

 the pilots, both here and at other places on this coast, to be of opinion, that notwith- 

 standing the fluctuations of level caused by the wind, a person well accustomed to 

 this sea can decide whether, on a particular day, the water is an inch or two above 

 or below its standard level. There had been several calm days without wind before 

 I arrived at Oregrund, and I was assured that the sea was in a state of rest similar 

 to that of the day which had been chosen fourteen years before for making the mark. 

 Before we came to the spot, both Lieutenant Flumen and the boatmen expressed 

 their persuasion that I should find the sea below the mark, because they declared 

 that either the waters of the gulf were always sinking, or the land on this coast was 

 gradually rising. To confirm this opinion the sailors pointed out several rocks which 

 they well remembered to have been barely covered with water in their younger days, 

 or about forty years ago, but which now rise between one and two feet above the 

 w^ater. Among others they took me to a small insulated rock in the sea, opposite 

 Domaskarsund, which they recollected to have once been nearly two feet lower, at 

 which time the neighbouring channel, which I saw nearly dry, had allowed a loaded 



MDCCCXXXV. D 



