556 Sir H. H. Hoicorth — Geological History of the Baltic. 



I have ventured to draw another inference in regard to the 

 abruptness of the upheaval of the shell -beds from the abruptness 

 of the gap and want of conformity between the Ancyhis and the 

 Litorina beds. The fact of this unconformity is emphasized by the 

 Swedish geologists. Thus Nathorst says that " De Geer, in his more 

 recent papers, has pointed out that in many places in the peninsula 

 of Upland, especially in the neighbourhood of Upsala and Stockholm, 

 there is a discordance between the Litorina clay and the lighter- 

 coloured Baltic clay of Munthe on the one hand and the Ancylus 

 clay on the other. According to Hogbohm and Munthe, again, the 

 former clay in the district of Upsala is in certain places separated 

 from the Ancylus clay by a layer of sand or a clay-like sand 

 formation of a depth ranging up to several metres ; there can there- 

 fore be little doubt that there is a breach of continuity between the 

 beds, thus representing an abrupt change and involving more or less 

 troubled conditions" (Nathorst, " Sueriges Geologi," p. 268). 



Numerous additional facts, therefore, are available to support the 

 not generally accepted conclusion that the rise of the Baltic lands 

 not only took place in the main and perhaps entirely in primitive 

 times, but that the same rise was intermittent and not gradual, and 

 was rapid and sudden and not continuous and slow. 



Let us now turn again to the sinking in the southern Baltic 

 area which broke down the Baltic breach. This has been thought 

 by some of the northern geologists to have been a very general 

 phenomenon, in which a large part of Scandinavia had a part. 

 As attested by the evidence, however, it was very local, and involved 

 only the narrow seas separating Skane from Mecklenburg and the 

 mainland generally. 



To the evidence already cited of the fact itself I should like to 

 add some more recent testimony. The 2nd part of the 3rd series of 

 the Danish Geological Survey publications is a synopsis of recent 

 progress in geology in Denmark by Ussing, who mentions instances 

 of submerged peat bogs recently found at Graadyp, north-west of 

 Fano; in the dock works at Esbjerg, and Aarhus, and at various 

 places near Copenhagen and Bornholm. A famous example was 

 that disclosed in 1899 during the drainage works at Copenhagen 

 and at a place where the water was 40 feet deep. Ussing says 

 expressly that the position of this submerged peat bog in relation 

 to the depth of the Sound shows that it may have been once 

 a part of the land communication between Copenhagen and Malmo 

 (op. cit., p. 313). As he says, " Som sammenlignet med Oresundets 

 Dybdeforhold antyder, at der maa have vaeret landfast Forbindelse 

 mellem Kjobenhavn og Malmo." 



The deposit at Esbjerg, of which a very good profile is given 

 by Hartz, shows a bed of ti;rf two inches thick covered by 1*5 

 of sand, etc., including a layer of sand with shells. The bed of turf 

 lay 4-5 metres under high-water mark. 



In addition to peat mosses, submerged trunks of trees have also 

 occurred in similar localities ; thus in indamming land at Vigero, 

 3,000 feet outside the south coast of the Odense fiord, stumps of 



