THE LAND IN CERTAIN PARTS OF SWEDEN. 21 



thousands which, having probably lain for a great many years at the same height 

 above the mean level of the sea, had entirely changed their colour. They declared 

 that they well knew the exact date of the arrival of some of these blocks, which they 

 observed would in time become as well coloured (or as thickly clad with lichens) as 

 those older ones among which they had been thrown. On my demanding whether 

 any of my informants had seen great stones floated by ice, they admitted that they 

 had not ; but the chief pilot stated that the drift ice on this coast is often packed so 

 as to be eighteen feet thick, different sheets from five to six feet in thickness being 

 driven one over the other ; and when this happens, fragments of rocks might be 

 frozen in and floated off* on a rise of the water or a change of wind. The more usual 

 mode, however, of explaining the manner in which ice operates is somewhat different. 

 When the sea freezes in winter to the depth of about five or six feet, detached 

 masses of rock lying on shoals are necessarily frozen in. Afterwards, when the water 

 rises on the approach of summer, the ice, being buoyed up, lifts with it these stones, 

 and they may then be transported by floating ice-islands to a great distance. 



The next mark which I examined was that of St. Olof's Stone in Edsko (or Edsjo) 

 Sund*, in the parish of Hille. There was no one at Gefle who was present in 1820 

 when the mark was cut, and unfortunately it is imperfectly and even incorrectly de- 

 scribed in Bruncrona's Report. St. Olof's Stone is an immense erratic block, about 

 thirty-six feet high above the water, forty long, and thirty broad, with precipitous 

 and in some places overhanging sides. It consists of micaceous schist with garnets. 

 It is situated in lat. 60° 52' N. The mark is cut on the precipitous south-east side, at 

 the base of which there is about a fathom's depth of water. 



Bruncrona, in his Report, states that the mark consists of a horizontal line, upon 

 which the date of the year 1820 is carved. Directions were probably given by him to 

 this effect, but they have only been in part executed, for there is neither a horizontal 

 nor vertical mark, but only two irregular lines to the right of the figures, as shown in 

 the annexed sketch. It is also stated in the Report, that Fig. ii. 



the water stood 1*92 foot under the lowest edge or base 

 of the ciphers. Now unfortunately, the base of the let- 

 ters do not form a perfectly horizontal line, the bottom 

 of the last cipher being three quarters of an inch below 

 the bottom of the figure 8. On the evening of July 3rd, 

 I found the water-level to be exactly two feet below the 

 base of the cipher, or the 0. The wind was blowing from the east-south-east, so that 

 the water in the Sound, according to the pilot's opinion, was four or five inches above 

 its level of equilibrium. 



As this was the third time 1 had been told that the sea was several inches above 

 its standard height, I determined to pass the night in Edsko, in hopes that the wind 

 might fall, and that I might have an opportunity of repeating my observation during 

 * Colonel Bruncrona has called this Assiasund, but it is not known by this name at Gefle. 



