492 HOWORTH ON SURFACE ELEVATION IN ARCTIC REGIONS. 



there a long time. This was verified by Lyell in 1834, at Kured, 

 about 2 miles north of Uddevalla, at a height of more than 100 

 feet above the sea. He says these Barnacles adhered so firmly to 

 the gneiss, that he broke off portions of the rocks, with the shells 

 attached. Similar deposits of shells are found at the island of 

 Orust, opposite Uddevalla. Between Gothenburg and Uddevalla, 

 and on the islands of Marstrand and Gulholmen, similar proofs 

 may be studied,* proving that we are here on the borders of a 

 doubtful line. 



In ] 844 M. Bravais showed that in the Gulf of Alten, in 

 Fin mark, the most northern part of Norway lying to the north of 

 Lapland, tliere are two distinct lines of upraised ancient sea-coast, 

 one above the other. f 



From Finmark we may naturally step across to Spitzbergen, 

 an island which is notoriously rising from the sea at a rapid rate. 

 I find the following passage as early as 1646: — These mountains 

 (twenty-two mountains of Spitzbergen) increase in bulk every year, 

 so as to be plainly discoverable by those that pass that way. 

 Leon in was not a little surprised to discover upon one of these 

 hills, about a league from the seaside, a small mast of a ship, with 

 one of its pulleys still fastened to it. This made him ask the sea- 

 men how that mast came there, who told him they were not able 

 to tell, but AA^ere sure they had seen it as long as they had used 

 that coast. Perhaps formerly the sea might either cover or come 

 near their mountain, where some ship or other being stranded, 

 this mast is some remnant of that wreck. J Parry, in an account 

 of his journey towards the Pole, page 126, refers to the vast 

 quantities of DrifL-v/ood stranded on the Spitzbergen coast above 

 high-water-mark. 



In the 16th vol. of the "Quart. Journal of the Geological Society," 

 Mr. Lament tells us that he found great quantities of Drift-wood 

 on all the Thousand Islands, as well as on the south coast of the 

 Spitzbergen main — some of it much worm-eaten, much of it lying 

 at least 30 feet above higli-water-mark. He nowhere found any 

 wood in situ. On all parts of Spitzbergen and its islands, visited 

 by him, he found numerous bones of Whales far inland and high 

 above high-water-mark. One large piece of a jawbone, found 

 by himself in October 1859, was discovered 40 feet above the sea. 

 It was part of an entire skeleton, which lay half buried in moss, 

 about half a mile from the sea, in Walter-Thymen's Strait. 

 There was also a terrace of trap-rocks higher than the moss in- 

 terveninjr between the latter and the sea. On one of the Thou- 

 sand Islands he counted eleven very large jaw-bones, along with 

 many bones forming other parts of the Whale's skeleton, all lying 

 close together in a slight depression, about 10 feet above the sea 

 level. On the same island he saw what he took to be a further 

 proof of the recent upheaval of the land. This was a sort of 

 furrow or trench, 100 yards long by 3 or 4 feet deep, and 3 or 4 



* Lyell, op. cit. passim. f Lyell, " Principles," 11 th edition, 194. 



X " Account of Greenland," by La Peyrere, in " Churchill's Voyages," 

 vol. ii. 



