UPHEAVAL OF THE LAND. 93 



rather tliaii the sea which is changing its level. Leopold de Buch was the first 

 to assert, in 1807, that the whole Scandinavian peninsula was rising above the 

 surrounding seas. Here the greatest number of observations have been made, 

 and Scandinavia has thus become the type with which are compared all other 

 slow upheavals elsewhere taking place. 



In many places the evidences of recent upheaval are perfectly visible from the 

 sea, but on the Swedish side the movement is going on most rapidly towards the 

 north. Thus at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Bothnia the upheaval is 

 estimated at about 5^ feet in the century, and at 3 feet 3 inches in the latitude of 

 the Aland Islands, whereas at Kalmar there seems to bo no change. The southern 

 extremity of Scania, which is now probably rising, appears to have formerly 

 slowly subsided. Several streets in the towns of Trelleborg, Ystad, and Malmo 

 have already disappeared, and the last mentioned has subsided 5 feet since the 

 observations made by Linnaeus. Submerged forests and peat beds found at a 

 certain distance from the present coast-line, and where metal objects have been 

 collected, have caused geologists to suppose that since the ninth century the 

 subsidence has amounted to from 14 to 16 feet. 



Thanks to this movement, the Gulf of Bothnia would seem to be slowly 

 draining into the southern basin of the Baltic, and at the present rate of upheaval 

 in the north three or four thousand years would sufiice to change the Qvarken 

 archipelago to an isthmus, and convert the northern section of the gulf into a 

 fresh-water lake. 



On the Norwegian seaboard the movement is far less regular, and nowhere so 

 rapid as on the Swedish side of the Gulf of Bothnia. At some points even of the 

 north coast no rising seems to have taken place at all. Thus Tioto, mentioned in 

 the sagas, is still the same large low island of former days, and a reef in 

 Trondhjem-fiord, on which a swimmer could find a footing in the time of the first 

 vikings, appears to be still at the same depth below the surface. Eugène Robert 

 believes that no upheaval has taken place for three hundred years at Christiania, 

 though others have found a rising of 12 j inches per century on the shores 

 of the fiord. 



The periods of upheaval must have been frequently interrupted by more or 

 less protracted intervals of rest. If most of the terraces consist of moraines levelled 

 by the waves, or of alluvial deltas brought down by the inland streams, there are 

 others which have been hollowed out of the hard rock by the slow action of water 

 continued for ages. But rocks gradually emerging could not have been much 

 worn on the surface. Lyell supposes that the Norwegian coast has been slowly 

 rit-ing for at least twenty-four thousand years, while Kjerulf considers that the 

 movement has been much more rapid. 



It is generally held that the underground upward pressure is not uniform 

 throughout the peninsula, but that it acts by a series of undulations, so that 

 between the regions of upheaval intermediate zones are left unafiected, or very 

 nearly so. But further observation is needed to establish this view, and since 

 1852 the mean level of the sea and Scandinavian plain has been studied day b}- 



