Mar. 28, 1872] 



NATURE 



421 



of Behring's Straits, and the shallow sea about the islands, as 

 an area of depression, but without any authority, so far as I 

 know. 



Those barren and desolate islands, so well described by the 

 Russians, bear all the traces of having recently been underwater, 

 and the American Birkbeck has proved, beyond much doubt, 

 that the eastern coasts of Asia, including China and Japan, are 

 being upheaved. I find 1 was forestalled l^y Pennant in the con- 

 jecture of the very recent junction of the White Sea and the 

 Baltic, and I am very glad to quote him as an authority. He 

 says the lakes Sig, Ondar, and VVigo, form successive links from 

 the Lake ( )nega to the White Sea. The Lake Saima almost cuts 

 Finland through from north to south ; its northern end is not 

 remote from Lake Onda, and the southern extends very near to 

 the Gulf of Finland, a space of nearly 40 Swedish or 260 English 

 miles. These, probably, were part of the bed of the ancient 

 Streights [sic] which joined the White and Baltic Seas (Appendi.x 

 to Arctic Zoology, 23). 



In regard to tire rise of Spitzbergen, it is curious to find the 

 following passage so early as 1646 : — " These mountains (twenty- 

 two mouniains of Spitzbergen) increase in bulk every 'year, so as 

 to be plainly discovered by those that pass that way. Leonin 

 was not a little surprised to discover upon one of these hills 

 about a league from the sea-side, a small ni.ist or a ship, with 

 one of its puUies still fastened to it ; this made him ask the sea- 

 men how that mast came there, who told him they were not able 

 to tell, but were sure they had seen it as long as they had used 

 that coast. Perhaps, formerly, the sea might either cover or 

 come near their mountain, where some ship or other being 

 stranded, this mast is some remnant of that wreck." {Account 

 of Greenland by M. La Peyrere in Churchill's Voyages, vol. ii.) 

 Parry, in his account of his journey towards the Pole, 126, also 

 refers to the vast quantities of drift wood stranded on the Spitz- 

 bergen coasts above higli-water mark. 



Having strengthened my former paper by instances of upheaval 

 in other points, and I hope satisfied your readers of the justice 

 of the generalisation about the rise of circumpolar land, it is 

 natural to ask if this remarkable fact is paralleled in any way 

 at the southern pole, — whether we can show that both in the 

 Arctic and Antarctic seas there is a bulging out of llie land, and a 

 displacement of the sea at present in progress. Our knowledge 

 of tlie lands immediately about the southern pole is very scanty ; 

 but fortunately we have unmistakeable evidence at the various 

 points of those better known austral lands whiclr approach the 

 antarctic seas, from which we may be justified in drawing a sound 

 conclusion. South America, New Zealand, Australia, Tasma- 

 nia, and Southern Africa. 



To begin with South America, I cannot quote a better autho- 

 rity than Mr. Darwin : — 



" Everything in this soutliern continent has been effected on a 

 grand scale : the land from the Rio Plata to Terra del Fuego, a 

 distance of 1,200 miles, has been raised in mass (and in Patagonia 

 to a height of between 300 and 400 feet) within the period of 

 the now-existing sea shells. The old and weathered shells left 

 on the surface of the upraised plain still partially retain tlieir 

 colours I have said that within the period of exist- 

 ing sea shells, Patagonia has been raised 300 to 400 feet ; I may 

 add that within the period when icebergs transported boulders 

 over the upper plain of Santa Cruz the elevation has been at 

 least 1,500 feet" (Naturalists' Voyage p. 171). Again, " M. 

 d'Orbigny found on the banks of the Parana, at the height of 

 100 feet, great beds of an estuary shell now living 100 miles 

 lower down nearer the sea, and I found similar shells at a less 

 height on the banks of the Uruguay ; this shows that just before 

 the Pampas was slowly elevated into dry land the water covering 

 it was brackish. Below Buenos Ayres there are upraised beds 

 of sea-shells of existing species, which also proves that the period 

 of elevation of the Pampas was within the recent period" (p. 130). 

 So much for the East Coast. Now for the West. Speaking of 

 the Hacienda of Quintero, in Central ChUi, he says:— "The 

 proofs of the elevation of tliis whole line of coast are unequivo- 

 cal. At the height of a few hundred feet old-looking shells are 

 very numerous." Again, speaking of Northern Chili, he says : — 

 ' ' I have convincing proofs that this part of the continent of South 

 America has been elevated near the coast at least from 400 to 

 500 feet, and in some parts from 1,000 to 1,300 feet, since the 

 epoch of existing shells, and further inland the rise may have 

 been greater." In Peru, about Callao, he also found evidences of 

 rising land ; but here we come to one of the horizons where rising 

 andsinking landmeet. If it be necessary to supplement the account 



of Mr. Darwin, I have the authority of Mr. P.axendall for stat- 

 ing that he found numerous skeletons of whales and seals stranded 

 above high-watermark on the coast near Africa, where a tide (as 

 is well known to be the case in all the Eastern Pacific) is almost 

 unknown. 



Having satisfied ourselves of the rise of the southern portion 

 of South America, we must now shortly state the reasons for 

 making it very recent. Speaking of the earthquake of 1S22, 

 which caused a general upheaval of the land, Mr. Darwin says, 

 " The most remarkable effect of this earthquake was the perma- 

 nent elevation of the land ; the land round the Bay of Concep- 

 tion was upraised two or three feet, at the island of Santa Maria 

 (about thirty miles distant) tlie elevation was greater. On one 

 part Captain FitzRoy found beds of putrid mussel-shells still 

 adhering to the rocks 10 feet above high water-mark ; tlie in- 

 habit.auts had formerly dived at low-water spring tides for these 

 shells" (p. 310). Again, two years and three-quarters afterwards 

 Valdivia and Chiloe were again shaken, and an island in the 

 Chonos Archipelago was permanently elevated more than 8 feet. 

 At Valparaiso within the last 220 years the rise has been some- 

 what less than 19 feet, while at Lima a sea beach has certainly 

 been upheaved from So to 90 feet within the Indo-human period 

 [id. passim). Eighty-five feet above the sea level in an island in 

 the Bay of Callao he found on a sea beacli some Indian corn and 

 pieces of Indian thread, similar to those found in Peruvian 

 tombs, a parallel find to that made by Sir Charles Lyell in Scan- 

 dinavia, which I previously referred to. 



Having examined the evidence for South America, we will now 

 turn to the other great southern continent, Africa. I will quote 

 a few p.assages. ' ' There cannot be the slightest doubt that the 

 upheaval of the country is still going on ; for along the whole 

 coast of South Africa from the Cape to Durham Bluff, and still 

 farther north, even as far as Zanzibar, modern raised beaches, 

 coral reefs, and oyster banks may everywhere be seen. At the 

 Izinhluzabalungu Caves is such a point, where the rising of the 

 coast is plainly visible, recent oyster-shells are now 12 feet and 

 more above high-water mark. The same can be observed on the 

 whole line of the Natal Coast. Van der Decken has observed 

 the same thing at Zanzibar, and is of the same opinion as myself, 

 viz., that the Eastern Coast is rising early in the present year 

 (?'.£'., 1S70). I had the opportunity of observing at the Bazanito 

 Islands about ninety miles north of Inhambane, on tlie east coast 

 of Africa, a series of raised coral reefs round the island of Marsha 

 containing many living shells and quite recent oyster-banks." 

 (Griesbach, Geology of Natal, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxvii. 

 part ii. p. 6g. ) Mr. Griesbach also mentions that he saw imple- 

 ments of early man, which were obtained by Richard Thornton 

 and others in old raised beaches of Natal, near Inanda, and at 

 the mouth of the Zambesi River. 



Mr. Griesbach is confirmed by Mr. Stow in his papers on the 

 Geology of South Africa in the same Journal (see vol. x.xvii. p. 

 526 et .til/.), where bones and teeth are found mixed with shells, 

 quite in a recent state, about Port Elizabeth, &c. 



In regard to Tasmania, I quote the following from Mr. Wintle's 

 paper on the Geology of Hobart Town {Mine Journal, vol. xxvii. 

 p. 469) : — " Until a very recent period in the geological annals 

 of this island, a great portion of what now constitutes the site of 

 this city was under water. This is proved by the extensive 

 deposits of comminuted shells, all of recent species, which are 

 met with for miles along the banks of the Derwent. Some of 

 these deposits are at an elevation of upwards of 100 feet above 

 high-water mark, and from 50 to too yards from the water's edge, 

 plainly showing thereby that a very recent elevation of the land 

 has taken place." 



In New Zealand the evidence is the same. M. Reclus says 

 the port of Lyttelton has risen 3 feet since it was occupied by 

 the settlers. Mr. Forbes says that proofs of upheaving of the 

 land are even now obvious to any intelligent traveller. Some of 

 these changes have been witnessed by the present generation. 

 Again, in the Middle Island upheaval of the land is observable 

 in a marked manner through the entire length of the western 

 coast from Cape Farewell to Dusky Bay. Some of the most 

 extraordinary changes in these regions have taken place within 

 the last few years. 



This has been confirmed by Dr. Haast, who, however, found 

 some signs of depression at the north-western extremity of the 

 lands. In Australia our evidence is ample : — The north-east, 

 if not the whole of the east coast of Australia, is slowly rising, as 

 proved by the gradual shoaling of the Channel between Hinchin- 

 brook Island and the mainland, due to all appearance neither to 



