Dec. 28, 1871] 



NATURE 



16- 



island. This implies tliat a great deal of dry land must then 

 have been under water. In 1S34 Sir Charles Lyell wrote his 

 Bakerian lecture, in which he brought forward overwhelming 

 evidence to prove that Scandinavia was then being gradually up- 

 heaved. Celsius, who wrote in the i yih century, had affirmed 

 it, and calculated the rise at forty inches in a centuiy. In 1807 

 Von Buch wrote that all the country from Frederickstadt, in 

 Sweden, to Abo, in Finland, and perhaps as far as St. Peters- 

 burg, was slowly rising. Other authorities concurred, and 

 lastly Sir Charles Lyell, who had approached the subject as a 

 sceptic, was fully convinced after an exploration of the ground. 

 At Stockholm he found striking proofs of change since the 

 Bailie acquired its present tenants, Testacea found there seventy 

 feet above the sea level being identical with those found in the 

 adjacent sea. At Soderleige, a little farther south, and in a bed 

 ninety feet above the sea level, besides the shells were found 

 several buried vessels, made of wood, and joined with wooden 

 pegs. In another place an iron anchor and nails were found. At 

 Upsala brackish water plants were found in meadows where 

 there are no salt springs ; a proof that the sea had only recently 

 retired. At Oregrund, forty miles to the north, the land had 

 risen five inches and a half since 1820, and at Gefle were low 

 pastures, where the inhabitants' fathers remembered boats and 

 even ships floating. Experienced pilots in the Gulf of Bothnia 

 estimated the fall of the waters at two feet in thirty years. Since 

 Sir Charles Lyell's lecture both the Russians and the Swedes 

 have made experiments all proving the same fact. 



To the east of Scandinavia we have Finland, exhibiting all the 

 characteristics of a recently-emerged land. It is a mere congeries 

 of lakes and swamps, separated by moss and sand. The level of 

 the lakes is constantly falling. In 1818 Lake Sovando was sud- 

 denly lowered ; its waters escaped into Lake Ladoga, and much 

 of its bottom was exposed. Similar traditions about low 

 meadows but recently crossed by boats and ships to those existing 

 in Sweden prevail here also, and there seems good ground for 

 beHeving that in the days of the Norsemen the White Sea and 

 the Gulf of Finland were joined by a considerable strait. Farther 

 east, again, we have the experience of Murchison and his com- 

 panions, who found on the banks of the Dwina and Vaga recent 

 shells still retaining their colour, and of the same species as those 

 found in the Arctic Sea. In Spitzbergen, Mr. Lamont reports 

 (see vol. xviii. of the " Quarterly Journal of the Geographical 

 Society ") that he discovered recent bones and drift wood several 

 miles inland and high above high-water mark, skeletons of 

 whales thirty to lorty feet above the sea level. The seal fishers 

 told him the land was rising, and that the seas thereabouts were 

 now too shallow for the right whale, which had forsaken the 

 Spitzbergen coast. This is confirmed by Malmgren (see Peter- 

 mann's Millheilungin, 2, 1863). Farther east we have the 

 Tundras between the Karen Sea and the Gulf of the Obi pre- 

 senting bare desolate flats that look as if they had only recently 

 emerged. Middendorf describes the surface of the great 

 Siberian Tundra as coated with fine sand like that now being 

 deposited by the Polar Sea. Von Wrangel has many useful 

 remarks to prove my position. He tells us that Diomed Island, 

 mentioned by LajJtev and Schalaurov, is now joined to the main- 

 land ; the coast of the Swatoi Ness, which they describe as very 

 indented and ruinous, is now straight. The Bear Islands are 

 mere heaps of ice and stones, evidently but recently covered 

 with water ; and shoals and banks now occupy what was toler- 

 ably deep water in 1 787 when Captain Sarypchew was there. 



Herdenstrom, in iSio, found large birches scattered about the 

 Tundra, 3° to the north of any known Siberian forest ; probably 

 drift wood such as Wrangelhimself found drifting in the Polar Sea. 

 Whales have now almost deserted the Siberian shores, where in 

 the eighteenth century they were common. This is, no doubt, 

 due to the shallowing of the water, as is the case in the Spitz- 

 bergen Sea. The shores of the Polar Sea, from the Lena to 

 Behring's Straits, are for the most part low and flat. In winter 

 it is hard to say where land ends and sea begins. A few versts 

 inland, however, a line of high ground runs parallel with the 

 present coast, and formerly, no doubt, constituted the boundary 

 of the ocean. This belief is strengthened by the quantity of 

 drift wood found in the Upper Level, and also by the shoals 

 that run out, and will, no doubt, become dry land {Vulc Wran- 

 gel's Introduction). " At several places along the coast we found 

 old weathered drift wood at the height of two fathoms above 

 the present level of the sea, whilst the lower drift wood lay at a 

 level, indicating a change of level." Moving farther east again 

 across Behring's Straits, we find Captain Beechey describing the 

 coast as a high cliff, now separated from the sea by low flats with 



bones, &c., on them. I cannot speak with the same confidence 

 of the vast archipelago that bounds America on the north, nor 

 about the northern shores of America, my researches having 

 been confined to Asia, but evidence must abound in the Arctic 

 voyages. Drift wood and bone; of whales are mentioned on 

 high ground by several of them. If it be permitted to quote 

 the works of M. Reclus as an authority, and I believe it to be a 

 most sound book, he says, page 628, numerous indications of the 

 phenomenon (i.e. of the upheaval of the circumpolar land of 

 North America) have been recognised in the Arctic islands, 

 scattered off the coasts of the Continent. At Port Kennedy 

 Mr. Walker found shells of the present period at a height of 

 557 feist above the sea ; a bone of a whale lay at a height of 164 

 feet. Again, page 651, after saying that .Southern Greenland is 

 being depressed, he continues, "On the north of Greenland, 

 from lat. 76", and in Grennell's land, t^c, the directly contrary 

 phenomenon is taking place." Hayes discovered on all the coasts 

 the existence of ancient sea-beaches which had gradually risen to 

 the height of 100 feet. 



I have thus shown good ground for entertaining the notion 

 that the land at present rising about the Pole is a continuous 

 area, and is not rising merely in detached masses as M. Reclus's 

 and Mr. Murray's maps (Geographical Distribution of Mammals) 

 would lead us to suppose. I believe, further, that this area, 

 bounded on the south by about the 57th parallel of latitude, is 

 the only area in the Northeyn Hemisphere whieh is at present iijtder- 

 goiiig iiplienval. I should feel grateful to any of your corre- 

 spondents who would point out where there is another area (of 

 course excepting local distur'oance immediately round a volcanoe) ; 

 or would direct me to any authorities throwing light on the 

 question I have advanced, which for anything I know may be 

 an old theory, or even an exploded heresy. 



Not only is the land around the Pole rising, but there is evi- 

 dence to show that the nearer we get to the Pole the more rapid 

 the rise is. This has been shown most clearly in the case of 

 Scandinavia by .Sir Charles Lyell, who most carefully guaged 

 the rise at different latitudes from Scania, where the land is 

 almost stationary, to the northern parts of Norway, where the 

 rise is four feet in a century. While in Spitzbergen and the 

 Polar Sea of Siberia, if in the memory of seal fishers and others 

 the water has shallowed so fast as to have excluded the rig'iit 

 whsle, we may presume that the rate of emergence continues to 

 increase, until it reaches its focus at the Pole, as it certainly 

 diminishes until it disappears towards the south between the 

 56th and 5Sth parallels of latitude. The su'oject is one of para- 

 mount importance to those who are trying to work out the history 

 of the earth, and I once suggested at the British Association that 

 it should be made the work of a special report, but I was 

 snubbed. I appeal with more confidence to you, sir, to help 

 me to ventilate it. The question of the subsidence of other 

 areas, and of the correlated climatic change, I will reserve for 

 another letter. Henrv H. Howorth 



Derby House, Eccles 



THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT ECLIP.SE 

 EXPEDITION 



MANY of the readers of N.4TURE are no doubt in- 

 terested in the fate of the Eclipse Expedition of 

 1871. I will therefore give a sketch of their doings to the 

 present time. 



The P. and O. steamer Miizaporc, having the party on 

 board, left Southampton on Oct. 26, and, after a rather 

 rough voyage, reached Malta on Nov. 4 ; left again the 

 same evening, and arrived at Port Said on ttie 8th ; 

 entered the Canal at once, and anchored at Suez on the 

 lotli. Here she remained till the 12th, awaiting the 

 arrival of the Brindisi mails ; then left for Galle, where 

 she arrived the 27th. On leaving the Channel a strong 

 S.W. breeze was encountered, which soon increased to 

 half a gale. The ship, though a roller, is a good sea boat, 

 and made good progress ; but the bad weather continued 

 with little abatement until the Mirzaporc was well in the 

 Mediterranean, and nearing Malta. The sea then became 

 calmer, the sun shone out, and the passengers, many of 



