1867.] LOED SELKIRK 8EA-WATER-LEVEL MARKS. 193 



to the north of Marstrand. It is upon a rock at the entrance of a 

 small creek that runs up close to the village, and is to the south of 

 the Post-house, as Sir Charles calls it, which is the only tolerable 

 house in the village, and is also the Inn as well as the Steam-boat 

 Agency. On the 18th July, 1866, the water-line belonging to the 

 mark was just three inches above the surface of the water. The 

 innkeeper, who showed me the mark, said that he considered the 

 water at present rather high for the season ; but the men of a sail- 

 ing-boat, in which I returned to Marstrand, said, on the contrary, 

 that they thought it rather low. The other three marks I saw were 

 near Marstrand, though none were on the Island of Marstrand itself. 

 The first I saw, which was the one furthest to the north, is on a rock 

 just abreast of the northernmost part of the town. This mark is a 

 row of four jumper-holes, each about an inch deep, and placed 

 between 1 and 2 inches apart in a horizontal row, with the date 1821 

 over them. I call it the Eour-Holes Mark, I have since heard 

 that it was put there by one Nils Brunskrona ; there is an N.B. 

 over it. On the 17th July, 1866, the water was just up at the hole ; 

 on the 19 th it was six inches lower, as near as I could measure it ; 

 but, the rock not being perpendicular, it was difficult to measure 

 accurately. This mark is not mentioned at all by Sir Charles LyeU. 

 The rock upon which this mark is placed is a hard gneiss rock, and 

 as little like anything bituminous as any rock I ever saw ; and yet 

 it had the appearance of black pitch oozing from it. I thought at 

 first that some recently pitched boat must have rubbed against it ; 

 but the pitch seemed too much ingrained for that. On looking 

 closer, however, I saw that the rocks bore marks of fire, and I found 

 afterwards that on May Day, or Midsummer, or some such festival, 

 they were in the habit of burning a tar-barrel now and then on the 

 top of this rock. The other two marks were put, as I was told, by 

 a Captain Cronstadt, a Swedish engineer ^ officer (and I shaU call 

 them Captain Cronstad's marks), in the year (AE) 1770, when taking 

 levels with a view to cutting a canal, which, however, was never 

 finished, and for which another is now substituted. The first I saw 

 was on the island of Bakkaholm, close to the landing-place, and just 

 facing the village of Marstrand; it is upon a very shelving rock, 

 nearly flat, in fact, which made it difficult to measure; but the 

 mark was, on the 19th July, seven inches perpendicular above the 

 actual level of the water, and about fifteen above a place to which, 

 from the appearance of the weed, it seems generally to retire in 

 summer. This mark seems not to have been observed by Sir Charles 

 LyeU. The last mark I saw was the one observed by Sir Charles 

 LyeU, and is, if I am not mistaken in my estimate of the distance, 

 an English mUe from the town of Marstrand, on the island that 

 faces the town at the opposite side of the harbour, caUed the Island 

 of Koon. It is at the foot of a precipice some fifty feet high, I sup- 

 pose, south-east of the town. The letters are shaped in the way that 

 he describes, owing to the way in which the gneiss is stratified, for the 

 convenience of carving the letters on a material of uniform hard- 

 ness and similar grain. Without his measurement T could never 



