PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 295 



heat experienced by the crust and nucleus of the earth, occa- 

 sioning ridges in the sohd surface, local modifications of gravi- 

 tation,* and, as a consequence of these alterations, in the curv- 

 ature of a portion of the liquid element. According to the 

 views generally adopted by geognosists in the present day, and 

 which are supported by the observation of a series of well- 

 attested facts, no less than by analogy with the most import- 

 ant volcanic phenomena, it would appear that the elevation 

 of continents is actual, and not merely apparent or owing to 

 the configuration of the upper surface of the sea. The merit 

 of having advanced this view belongs to Leopold von Buch, 

 who first made his opinions known to the scientific world in 

 the narrative of his memorable Travels through Norway and 

 Sweden in 1806 and I807.t While the whole coast of 

 Sweden and Finland, from Solvitzborg, on the limits of North- 

 ern Scania, past Gefle to Tornea, and from Tornea to Abo, 

 experiences a gradual rise of four feet in a century, the south- 

 ern part of Sweden is, according to Neilson, undergoing a 

 simultaneous depression. $ The maximum of this elevating 



* The opinion so implicitly entertained regarding the invariability of 

 the force of gravity at any given point of the earth's surface, has in 

 some degree been controverted by the gradual rise of large portions of 

 the earth's surface. See Bessel, Ueber Maas und Gewicht, in Schu- 

 macher's Jahrbuchfur 1840, s. 134. 



t Th. ii. (1810), s. 389. See Hallstrom, in Kongl. Vetenskaps-Aca- 

 demiens Handlingar (Stockh.), 1823, p. 30; Lyell, in the Philos. Trans. 

 for 1835 ; Blom (Amtmann in Budskerud), Stat. Beschr. von Norwegen, 

 1843, 8. 89-1 16. If not before Von Buch's travels through Scandina\'ia, 

 at any rate before their publication, Playfair, in 1802, in his illustrations 

 of the Huttonian theory, § 393, and, according to Keilhau {Om Land- 

 jordens Stigning in Norge, in the Nyt Magazine fur Naturvidenska- 

 herne), and the Dane Jessen, even before the time of Playfair, had ex- 

 pressed the opinion that it was not the sea which was sinking, but the 

 solid land of Sweden which was rising. Their ideas, however, were 

 wholly unknown to our great geologist, and exerted no influence on 

 the [)rogress of physical geography. Jessen, in his work, Kongeriget 

 Norge fremstillet efter dels naturlige og borgerlige Tilstand, Kjobenh., 

 1763, sought to explain the causes of the changes in the relative levels 

 of the land and sea, basing his views on the early calculations of Celsius, 

 Kalm, and Dalin. He broaches some confused ideas regarding the pos- 

 sibility of an internal growth of rocks, but finally declares himself in 

 favor of an upheaval of the land by earthquakes, " although," he ob- 

 serves, " no such rising was apparent immediately after the earthquake 

 of Egersund, yet the earthquake may have opened the way for other 

 causes producing such an etfect." 



X See Berzelius, Jahrsbericht uber die Fortschritte der Physischen 

 Wiss., No. 18, s. 686. The islands of Saltholm, opposite to Copen 

 hagen, and Bjornholm, however, rise but very little — Bjornholm scarce- 

 ly one foot in a century. See Forchhammer, in Philos. Magazine, 3d 

 Series, vol. ii., p 309 



