THE HUMAN SPECIES. 127 



names, and sung in Runic ballads, for being the basking beds 

 of seals, where daring hunters acquired celebrity in their pur- 

 suit, had risen above water beyond the reach of their ancient 

 amphibious visitors; parts of the gulf, which, half a century 

 before, had been crossed in boats by the French academicians, 

 were converted into permanent meadow land ; and more minute 

 research disclosed, at a distance inland, successive lines of 

 beach, each provided with a bed of shells in a very recent state. 

 From these the sea had evidently receded, according to the 

 changes which an upheaving motion of the land, proceeding 

 from the north, effected on the levels; and correspondingly 

 raised beaches have since been observed by M. Bravais, on the 

 opposite declivity of the Lapland system, near Hainerfest and 

 Cape North, which show, by being at greater elevations, the 

 acting forces to be most powerful on the Polar side. More 

 than a century passed ; with a view of settling the question by 

 positive measurement, copper bolts were driven in several 

 rocks at the mean sea level, and subsequent investigation sub- 

 stantiates that the rising progress is greatest in the north, 

 oeing, at the summit of the Gulf of Bothnia, at the rate of 4£ 

 feet in a century, decreasing to one foot at Stockholm ; and on 

 the southern or German shore of the Baltic, at 0, or, as we 

 think, declining.^ This supposition is countenanced by several 

 submersions in the southern Baltic, already observed, from the 

 year 830, such as those resulting from the great storm, when 

 the island of Rugen was separated from the German shore, and 

 the successive marine depressions of the commercial republics 

 of Winetha, Arkona, and Jomsberg, near Wollin; some endur- 

 ing to the twelfth century, when their ruin, effected by the 



* These researches date from the year 1700, when, to mark the true 

 level, copper bolts were driven in, and deep grooves were cut in the rocks. 

 They terminated in 1S27, the observations being made by Davis, Hellant, 

 Cydenius, Klingius, Rudman, &c. Several French philosophers have 

 made later researches, and confirmed the progress. See Elie. de Beau- 

 mont, Mem. Acad, des Sciences de Paris. 



