34 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
the fifteenth centui7, has since disappeared and is now nowhere 
to be seen ; the sea has long ago swept it away, and hidden 
beneath its waves the spot upon which it stood. We have nume- 
rous examples in geology of this encroachment and retiring of the 
sea on or from the coasts of different continents, and we shall 
doubtless have frequent occasion to refer to them in some of our 
future articles. The uplifting of certain banks of shells, the sink- 
ing or loweruig of monuments erected near the sea coast, procure 
us ample grounds for investigating the effects and causes of these 
phenomena ; and the slow oscillatory movements noticed on the 
coasts of Sweden, Norway, Sicily, Sardinia, Italy, New Holland, 
certain pai'ts of America, &c., as well as the periodic, although 
irregularly alternating rise and fall of the water in the Caspian 
and Dead Seas, together with like phenomena already observed 
in the Coral Seas, show us, that without earthquakes, properly so 
called, the surface of the earth is capable of the same gentle and 
progressive oscillations as those which must have prevailed so 
generally in the earliest ages. One of the most curious oscilla- 
tions of maritime shores, is that which, according to Belpaire, is 
gomg on at the present time along the coast of Flanders. If we 
are to believe the eminent naturalist just named, the Flemish 
coast, from the mouth of the river Scheld to the town of Calais, 
is undergoing a species of oscillation, the axis of which motion 
appears to be situated near the little tovm of Nieuport. The land 
which extends from Nieuport to the coast of Holland, appears to 
be gradually sinking, whilst the coast line from Nieuport to Calais 
seems to rise slowly out of the sea. The extent of this oscillatory 
motion has not yet been determined with certitude. — "The eastern 
" coast of the Scandinavian peninsula," says Humboldt, {*) " has 
" probably risen about 320 feet in 8,000 years. In 12,000 years, if 
" the movement be regular, parts of the bottom of the sea which 
" lie nearest the shores, and are in the present day covered by 
" nearly fifty fathoms of water, wiU come to the surface, and con- 
" stitute dry land. But what are such intervals of time, compared 
" to the length of the geognostic periods revealed to us in the 
" stratified series of fonnations, and in the world of extinct and 
" varying organisms ! " We may add with the same illustrious 
(*) Cosmos, vol. 1, p. 302, £n^. Tram, by Otto. 
