1867.] lokd selkirk sea-water-level marks. 191 



Maech 6, 1867. 



Eobert Henry Scott, Esq., M.A., Hon. Sec. E.G.S.I., Director of 

 the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade ; and Elijah 

 Walton, Esq., 144 Kent-road, S.E., were elected Eellows. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On some Sea- water-level Marks on the Coast o/SwEDEisr. 

 By the Eight Hon. the Earl of Selkirk, F.E.S., E.G.S. 



Dtjrii^g a short tour in Sweden in the summer of 1866 I had an 

 opportunity of examining the sea-marks, which are supposed to 

 show some change in the relative level of land and water, both in the 

 Gulf of Bothnia and on the west coast among the islands oif Gote- 

 borg. The general belief among the people on the coast that the 

 land is rising, or, as they term it, the water receding, adds a good 

 deal to the difficulty of the inquiry, every one naturally wishing to 

 show something to corroborate the general belief. 



The first marks I saw were two, both off the harbour of Gefle. 

 On Tuesday, 3rd July, 1866, I went in a sailing-boat, with two 

 pilots and a young gentleman of the place, who spoke English well, 

 and who volunteered to accompany me. We had a brisk wind from 

 west and south-west, and made a quick run over to Lofgrund, 

 which is one of the outer range of islets off the harbour, and is, I 

 suppose, some twelve English miles from the town. I was at once 

 shown the mark described by Sir Charles Lyell, which is said to 

 have been cut by one Eudberg, a pilot. I call it " Eudberg's mark." 

 It is a date, 1731, with a line under it ; and two feet six inches (old 

 Swedish measure) lower down there is another date, 1831, with 

 another line under it ; but the last figure is not very distinct, and 

 may be a 4 ; and when I saw it, the water was one foot below this 

 lower line. It appears to me that the mark is not upon a rock, but 

 upon a boulder-stone ; and I should, though I feel much hesitation in 

 differing from such an authority as Sir C. LyeU, have called it gneiss 

 rather than mica-schist. My reasons for believing it to be a stone, not 

 a rock are : — that all the rocks I saw in the neighbourhood, where I 

 could distinctly see that they were rocks, were much more smoothed 

 and rounded off at the top ; and also that nearly every other stone 

 I saw in the island was sandstone, or conglomerate, of a reddish or 

 brown colour. I could see nothing that I could be sure was rock in 

 situ in the Island of Lofgrund. The bay is rather on the north than 

 the east side of the island, and the place where the mark is seems 

 to me open to the Gulf of Bothnia. There can be no doubt, how- 

 ever, that it is the same mark seen by Sir Charles Lyell : it is near 

 the shore of the bay opposite to where the houses are ; the place is a 

 summer station for pilots and fishermen, and is uninhabited in winter, 

 but is sometimes visited by parties coming over the ice. I was told 

 that sometimes no open water is to be seen here at all, and that the 

 ice becomes from five to eight feet thick ; this I conceive must be 

 by one sheet sliding over the top of another ; it is said, too, to carry 



