116 



THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY. Lect. J. 



epochs, occur likewise on the shores of the Frith of Forth, 

 and along the eastern and western coasts of England. 



59. Elevation of Scandinavia. — Having thus ad- 

 duced a few striking proofs of the mutations which the 

 land has undergone in past times, we are led to inquire — 

 is this change still going on ? is the alternate subsidence 

 and elevation of the land the effect of a law of nature, 

 established from the commencement of the present condition 

 of our planet, and destined to continue in action while its 

 physical constitution remains the same ? We may unhesi- 

 tatingly reply in the affirmative, for there are innumerable 

 proofs that this law has been in constant action from the 

 earliest periods ; and I now proceed to adduce an instance 

 in which the elevation of a whole country is actually taking 

 place, unsuspected by the busy multitude which inhabit its 

 towns and cities, and known only by the researches of the 

 natural philosopher. I allude to Scandinavia, which is 

 slowly and visibly rising, from Frederickshall, in Sweden, 

 to Abo, in Finland, and even, perhaps, as far as St. Peters- 

 burgh ; while the adjacent coast of Greenland is suffering a 

 gradual depression. The state, therefore, is one of oscilla- 

 tion, the waters appearing to sink at Torneo, and to retain 

 their former level at Copenhagen. 



The opinion that Sweden is in this state of change, is no 

 new idea ; it was long since entertained by Celsius, and 

 other Swedish philosophers.* Mr. Lyell, who has twice 



* Celsius remarks, " that several rocks on the shores of the Baltic, 

 which are now above the water (a.d. 1730), were, not long before, 

 sunken rocks, and dangerous to navigators ; one especially, which, in 

 the year 1680, was on a level with the surface of the water, is twenty 

 and a half Swedish metres above it. From an inscription, near Aspo, 

 in the Lake Melar, which communicates with the Baltic, engraved, as 

 is supposed, above 500 years ago, the land appears to have risen no 

 less than thirteen Swedish feet." — Play/airs I Illustrations of the 

 Huttonian Theory, p. 436, edit. 1822. 



