356 tSir H. H. Howorth — Geological History of tJie Baltic. 



proved by the researches of the Northern geologists, notably Schmidt, 

 De Geer, Munthe, Hoist, and Nathorst. 



There is also a complete agreement among them that the cause of 

 the conversion of the freshwater Ancyliis lake into the Litorina sea 

 was the breaking down of the land barrier which once united 

 Southern Sweden with Pomerania and Mecklenburg on the one hand 

 and Jutland on the other, and the opening of the three channels 

 known as the Oresund, or Sound, and the Great and Little Belts by 

 which the salt water of the North Sea first got access to the then 

 enclosed freshwater Baltic, and converted it into a more or less 

 brackish sea. This I have tried to show was not the result of the 

 slow and gentle operation of current and normal denuding causes, but 

 of a violent and sudden or very rapid dislocation of the earth's crust. 

 It is necessary again to emphasize the difficulties of the opposite 

 view, and the more so since I am constrained to believe that the 

 dislocation was far greater, more wide-spread and important than 

 has hitherto been thought. 



The opposite view is really based on a professed adhesion to the 

 theory of uniformity which is held to be inconsistent with catastrophe. 

 Not uniformity in the sense that Nature working with the same tools 

 and with the same potency and speed produces similar results, which 

 is the keystone of modern science, but that Nature's operations at all 

 times have been the same both in kind, potency, and rapidity as 

 those which are working at this moment. This view, which 

 still prevails with some geologists, is contradicted by all the 

 evidence now available, notably by the gigantic and quite abnormal 

 phenomena of the great mountain chains. 



Let us, however, turn to our immediate problem and see what the 

 evidence is. 



First, we have the notable fact which, after a long discussion, 

 seems to be now generally received, namely, that in Sweden, as in 

 Britain and (as I shall point out presently) in Norway, there is no 

 reliable evidence that the relative heights of land and water have 

 altered in any appreciable way for a very long time, probably not for 

 2,000 years. This is also notably true of the Cattegat and the three 

 waterways between it and the Baltic. In the case of the Cattegat, 

 as in its gulf the Lirafiord, the position of the kitchen middens in 

 reference to the sea-level is an excellent test. In that great inlet 

 which is girdled with these refuse heaps of primitive man, there is 

 clear evidence that only slight changes have taken place in the 

 relative position of the middens to the sea-level since the earliest 

 stage of the Stone Age of Scandinavia. In the Sound and Belts the 

 only notable changes have been those of silting up of estuaries and 

 river channels, and of certain small signs of elevation (to which we 

 shall refer presently). On the other hand, the position of the old 

 maritime villages and towns, castles, and large trees on the sides of 

 the waterways, both in Western Sweden and Denmark, are conclusive 

 that there has been no upheaval or subsidence here for a long time, 

 and no widening of the channels by denuding causes. In the case of 

 the Sound we have a remarkable piece of evidence emphasizing this 

 conclusion. 



