OX THE DIMINUTION OF THE WATERS, &C. 215 



tHhers, in regard to the rapid diminution of the waters of 

 the Baltic, have been much insisted on by some geolo- 

 gists, although they cannot correctly be employed in il- 

 lustrating the supposed general diminution of the waters 

 of the globe ; because the Baltic is a nearly enclosed sea, 

 receiving rivers of considerable magnitude. Professor 

 Playfair, in his elegant geological work, remarks in re- 

 gard to the diminution of the waters of the ocean : 



"If we proceed further to the north, to the shores of 

 the Baltic for instance, we have undoubted evidence of a 

 change of level in the same direction as on our own shores. 

 The level of the sea has been represented as lowering at so 

 great a rate ^ forty inches in a century. Celsius observed, 

 that several rocks which are now above the water, were 

 not long ago sunken rocks, and dangerous to navigators ; 

 and he took particular notice of one which in the year 

 1680, was on the surface of the water, and in the year 

 1T31 was 20 Swedish inches above it. From an inscrip- 

 tion near the Aspo, in the lake Melar, which communi- 

 cates with the Baltic, engraved, as is supposed, about five 

 centuries ago, the level of the sea appears to have sunk 

 in that time no less than thirteen Swedish feet. All these 

 facts, with many more which it is unnecessary to enume- 

 rate, make the gradual depression, not only of the Baltic, 

 but of the whole Northern Ocean, a matter of certainty." 

 PLAYFAIR'S Illustrations, p. 445. 



That indefatigable and accurate observer De Luc, has 

 the following commentary on the preceding passage : 



" It would be unnecessary to mention even the two in- 

 considerable facts above, if the depression of the level of 

 these seas were indeed a matter of certainty; for the best 

 mithenticated and thq Jeafst eqtiivocal monuments of their 



