Il6 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 



supposed these organisms had come into existence after the 

 Deluge. To the epoch of the Deluge he also attributed 

 gigantic disturbances of the earth's surface that had uplifted 

 great portions of Scandinavia and thrown other areas into the 

 interior of the earth. He thought that frequent recurrences 

 of disturbance had taken place, elevating and destroying 

 mountain-systems and continents. 



Hiarne's work was written in his own language, and was little 

 read outside Sweden. The scientific writings of Emanuel 

 Swedenborg, the religious enthusiast, were more widely read. 

 Swedenborg (1688-1772), who held for a long time the post of 

 Assessor of Mines in Sweden, took a great interest in fossils, 

 and in his Observations of Natural Things (1722) he 

 mentions and describes a large number of Swedish fossils. 

 He thought the fossils found in high tablelands and mountains 

 had been left there by the flood ; he regarded the trap-rocks 

 (Swed. trappa, a stair, from the characteristic weathering) as 

 aqueous sediments, and referred volcanic phenomena to the 

 presence of molten reservoirs within the solid crust of the 

 earth. 



A work devoted to palaeontological details was published in 

 1727 by Magnas von Bromell; his Lithographia Suecana 

 treats of trilobites, corals, and gastropods from Gothland, and 

 of graptolites and plant-remains in calcareous tuff. Another 

 author, Kilian Stobseus, described the first known Ammonites 

 and the so-called "Brattenburg pennies" from the Cretaceous 

 deposits of Schonen. The year 1743 was signalised by the 

 publication of the famous observations made by Anders 

 Celsius on the sinking of the sea-level in the Gulf of Bothnia. 

 Celsius reckoned the lowering of the sea-level at 450 ft. in 

 10,000 years. 



Carl von Linne (1707-78) published in 1756 his account 

 of a geological tour that he made as early as 1741 with six 

 students to Oeland and Gothland. At West Gothland Linnaeus 

 had investigated very carefully the horizontal strata of the 

 "transitional formations" (now identified as Silurian and 

 Cambrian), succeeded by a series of trap-rocks well exposed at 

 the Kinnekulle hill. A typical section through the Kinne- 

 kulle hill was drawn up by Johan Svensson Lidholm, under the 

 guidance of Linnaeus, and it was taken as a standard for 

 the stratigraphical relations throughout Sweden. Linnaeus 

 assigned the trap or igneous series to aqueous origin. In 



