160 Dr. FoRCHHAMMER on Changes of Level in Denmark. 



selves of the facts which I have tried to point out, may certainly bring the calcu- 

 lation much nearer to the truth. 



The features of the beach now described, occur, with some small differences, 

 everywhere on the granitic, eastern shore of the island ; but wherever the coast 

 is formed of sandstones and slates of the transition-class, or of the beds of sand- 

 stone, sand, clay, and limestone, belonging to the lias, the oolitic series, and the 

 green-sand formation, no regularity in the beaches can be traced, nor can any one 

 be seen more than twenty feet above the present level of the sea ; and it seems as 

 if these formations have suffered a less regular elevation than the granite. 



Over the whole of Denmark, Sleswick, and Holstein, shells of species living at 

 the present time in the German Ocean may be found, sometimes at considerable 

 heights above the level of the sea. Thus not far from Bornhovd in Holstein, cer- 

 tainly exceeding 150 feet above the Baltic, occurs a bed of pebbles associated with 

 Cardium edule, Littorina littorea, Buccinum undatum, and Ostrea edulis. The speci- 

 mens of the last shell are much smaller than the 0. edulis now living on our coast, 

 but they agree with those found fossil in the raised beds of recent marine shells of 

 England. Thus the elevation of the country in modern times is certainly proved, 

 but this elevation must be much older than the inundation from the east before 

 mentioned. After that catastrophe subsidences occurred, of which I will mention 

 one with rather interesting features ; between the island of Romoe and the shores 

 of the dukedom of Sleswig, is a submarine forest nine feet below the present high 

 water, the roots still branching out into the sand. According to the evidence 

 of all the fishermen, this forest consists of fir, a tree which likewise occurs in 

 almost all our peat-mosses, being the oldest vegetation. At other places far be- 

 yond the present shore, forests of oak are found in the same situation below the 

 mean height of the sea. 



Before I conclude this letter, I wish to record the following phsenomena. On 

 the islands on the western shore of Sleswig traces of an inundation may be found 

 to the great height of about sixty feet above the present high-water mark, which 

 happened while the islands have been inhabited by man, because we find tumuli 

 partly destroyed by the inundation. The effect and height of this flood may easily 

 be traced by a bed of pebbles, partly rounded, partly angular, containing now 

 and then fragments of bricks, and easily distinguished from a beach by its occur- 

 rence in one single bed hardly a foot thick, undulating with the surface, and in 

 one place found only a few feet above high-water mark, while at others it is about 

 fifty feet above it. I consider it as the result of the washing away of the finer 

 materials, or the sand and sandy clay. 



London, March 20th, 1837. G. FoRCHHAMMER. 



