IIOWORTH ON SURFACE ELEVATION IN ARCTIC REGIONS. 4yl 



found round the Gulf of Bothnia.* From von Baer's researches it 

 would seem that oysters cannot live and grow in water holding 

 more than 37 parts in a thousand of salt, or less than 16 or 17 in a 

 thousand. The waters of the Baltic now do not contain more 

 than 5 parts in a thousand, and yet the beds of oysters prove that 

 both the Baltic and the inland lakes were once as salt as the North 

 Sea. M. Reclus argues this saltness could only come from some 

 former strait which occupied the depressions in which the Swedish 

 engineers have dug out the Trolhatta Canal. Besides, he says, 

 when the sluices were being constructed, there were found not far 

 from the cataracts, and at a height of 40 feet above the Cattegat, 

 various marine remains mingled with relics of human industry, 

 boats, anchors, and piles. | Sir Charles Lyell says similar oyster- 

 beds have been found further inland on the borders of Lake Wener, 

 50 miles from the sea, at an elevation of 200 feet, near Lake Rog- 

 varpen. Similar beds have also been discovered on the southern 

 shores of Lake Malar, at a place 70 miles from the sea.:}: So that 

 we may take it as proved that the great Swedish lakes are the 

 remains of a very recent marine strait, separating Scania from the 

 mainland. The shores of the Cattegat afford ample evidence of 

 upheaval. 



The greater part of Denmark is either stationary or sinking ; 

 but according to Forchhammer, the terminal point of Jutland, 

 bounded by an ideal line tending obliquely from Fredericshavn 

 towards the north-west, rises 11*70 inches in a century. The 

 amount is here probably exaggerated. 



We will nOAV turn to the coast of Norway. Here we approach 

 evidently a boundary-line between rising and sinking land. " Pro- 

 '^ fessor Keilhau, of Christiania," says Sir Charles Lyell, *' after 

 " collecting the observations of his predecessors respecting former 

 '* changes of level in Norway and combining them with his own, 

 " has made the fact of a general change of level at some unknown, 

 " but, geologically speaking, modern period (that is, within the 

 " period of the actual testaceous fauna) very evident. He infers 

 " that the whole country from Cape Lindernas to the North Cape, 

 " and beyond that as far as the fortress of Vardhuus, has been 

 *' gradually upraised, and on the south-east coast the elevation 

 " has amounted to more than 600 feet." The same author tells 

 us that marine fossil shells of recent species have been collected 

 from inland places near Drontheim. On the other side Mr. 

 Everest has shown that the island of Munkholm, an insulated 

 rock in the harbour of Drontheim, has remained nearly stationary 

 for eight centuries. Brongniart and Sir Charles Lyell both found 

 beds of recent shells raised 200 feet above the sea at Capellbacken, 

 all the species being identical with those now inhabiting the con- 

 tiguous ocean. The former also found Balani adheriiig to the 

 rocks above the shelly deposit, showing that the sea had remained 



* These beds of shells have since been traced by Erdmann to Sinde, at the 

 head of a lake of that name, 130 miles west of Stockholm, at the height of 

 230 feet above the sea. 



f Reclus, op. cit. vol. ii. % Lyell, op. cit. 527-9. 



