the Displacement of Shore-lines. 425 



which form them are partly freshwater formations, partly 

 formations from shallow seas ; there are no well-marked deep- 

 sea formations among them. They are to a great extent — • 

 perhaps for the most part — formed in inland seas and bays, in 

 basins which were separated by banks from the open sea. We 

 may arrive at this conclusion from the circumstance that salt- 

 water and freshwater formations so frequently alternate in the 

 Tertiary deposits ; for it is only when stratified formations take 

 place in basin-shaped depressions that freshwater basins can 

 be formed when the sea retires. 



And if we have deep basins which are separated by banks 

 from the open sea, a rising or sinking of the shore-line by some 

 few metres will be sufficient to submerge or lay dry the banks. 

 The dee]) basin will then alternately be salt and fresh. And 

 a rising of the sea by a few metres will likewise suffice to cause 

 the formation of thick saltwater deposits in the basin. If the 

 bank then again rises a few metres, the basin will remain fresh, 

 and thick freshwater beds can be deposited above the marine 

 beds. In this way the formation of alternating salt- and fresh- 

 water beds may continue, under small displacements of the 

 coast-line, until the basin is filled up. 



It would seem to be more difficiilt to reconcile the hypo- 

 thesis with the very considerable elevations which particular 

 countries have undergone in the period which has elapsed 

 since the Glacial period. Thus near Christiania and Trond- 

 heim the highest trace of the sea from the Postglacial time is 

 situated 188 metres above the sea. But in other parts of our 

 country the highest marine terraces are much lower, so that 

 it would seem as if the elevation has not been everywhere 

 equally great. It seems to have been weaker and weaker 

 outwards from the centre of the country. In Southern Sweden 

 and Denmark it has also been inconsiderable in the same 

 period. Penck has shown (•' Schwankungen des Meeres- 

 spiegels," in Jahrb. Geogr. Ges. Milnchen, Bd. vii.) that an in- 

 land ice exerts an attraction upon the sea, which, for this 

 reason, stands higher on the coast of a country, when the 

 land is covered with ice. The melting of the inland ice may 

 therefore have caused the sea on our coasts to sink somewdiat, 

 but the difference between the situations of the highest marine 

 traces in the different parts of Scandinavia is so great *, even 

 in neighbouring localities, that it could not be explained in 

 this way; and the most probable explanation would be that the 

 land has risen in different degrees at different placesf. It is 



* See E. von Drygalski, ''Die Geoiddeformationen der Eiszeit," in 

 Zeitachr. d. Ges.f. Erdkwnde in Berlin, Bd. xxii, 1887, pp. 169 et seqq. 

 t A similar unequal elevation has probably also taken place during 



