GREENLAND. 
273 
fjords, they reminded me of the parallel roads of Glen Roy — a 
comparison which I make rather from general resemblance 
than ascertained analogies of causes.” * 
There seems a tendency to regard this upward movement in 
the north, as well as the downward movement in the west, as 
still in progress ; in fact, to consider Greenland as a sort of 
lever, having its fulcrum somewhere between the two regions in 
which the opposite changes of relative level have been observed. 
There is nothing inconsistent in the hypothesis that a sub- 
sidence in one region synchronises with elevation in another at 
no very great distance ; and, indeed, it is believed by, at least, 
most geologists that an instance of the kind is furnished by 
Sweden, which is rising along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, 
sinking in the extreme south of the peninsula, but undergoing 
no change in the district of which Stockholm may be regarded 
as the centre. Dr. Brown, however, whilst cordially accepting 
the evidence of upheaval in North Greenland, believes that 
movement to be a thing of the past, that the whole island 
participated in it, and that he has detected unmistakeable 
proofs, along the whole extent of the Danish colonies — and, in 
one instance, 500 feet above the sea — of a striated clay, 
containing shells belonging to species still living in the neigh- 
bouring sea. In like manner, he regards the subsidence now 
in progress as being by no means local, but shared by the 
entire country. He admits, however, that the district between 
the Danish settlements and the south coast have not been 
examined ; so that he can only be held to have proved that, 
since the advent of the species of shellfish now living in the 
adjacent sea, those parts of Greenland now known to be sinking 
were at a much lower level than they are at present ; that, 
even then, the country was the scene of ice action, which, by 
depositing glacier-clay, furnished a habitat for the marine 
mollusks whose shells are now found in it ; that after this 
deposition the district rose slowly above the sea, and attained a 
sub-serial height of many hundred feet ; that if the process of 
elevation resembled that in the north of the island, it was 
broken by protracted periods of intermittence, during which 
the successive terraces were formed ; and that, at length, there 
set in a movement in the contrary direction, which is still in 
progress. It does not appear from the evidence at present 
before us that the downward movement is necessarily shared by 
the north, or, indeed, that the elevation has yet ceased there. 
On these points we need further information. 
It is obvious that whilst the changes just described take us 
slowly and far back into antiquity, they fail to reach the com- 
* u Arctic Explorations/ vol. ii. p. 81. 
