DRIFT AND OSARS OF SWEDEN. 
543 
of Christiania. We defer, however, considering the origin of this form of outline 
until we treat of Sweden, where these appearances are still more frequent. 
If the axis of Norway and Lapland was the great centre, from whence the chief 
masses of the detritus which cover Sweden have been derived, the latter country 
is highly interesting, in showing us the manner in which such detritus is piled up, 
and the manner in which it is associated with the phenomenon of the striation and 
polish of the rocks. Professor Sefstrom, to whose opinions we have before alluded, 
is the author most entitled to praise for having excited attention to the phenome- 
non of southern Sweden. He has endeavoured to show, that the osars, or boulder 
ridges of that country, are peculiar to it ; a point on which we can scarcely coincide 
with him, since we are acquainted with many diluvial ridges in Scotland, Ireland, 
and other countries which so resemble the Swedish osars in length, height and ar- 
rangement of materials, that they must have had the same origin 1 * * 4 . If such “osars” 
were situated near an alpine range, the advocates for the glacial theory would at 
once call them “ moraines.” But whatever they be named, it is quite manifest 
that they have been formed by water, since the boulders which occur throughout 
them are uniformly rounded as if by much powerful attrition. These osars, each 
seldom more than a mile in length, though often forming a prolonged series, are 
common over nearly all the flat regions of Sweden ; and as there are no mountains 
of any altitude whatever from the southern edges of Lapland to the parallel of 
Torneo, it is quite impossible, independent of other reasons, that such ridges should 
be the residue of glaciers ; for nowhere, as before said, are there elevated centres 
from which glaciers can have advanced. The whole of the superficial phenomena 
of the country are indeed at variance with this hypothesis ; for still more clearly 
than in Norway are all the hard and crystalline rocks affected by furrows and 
strife, the normal direction of which is from north-north-west to south-south-east, 
and still more are the north sides of each promontory worn down, polished and 
striated, whilst the south sides are abrupt, rough, and void of all such appearances. 
It was the generality of this phenomenon in all those parts of Sweden known to him, 
that impressed Sefstrom with the conviction, that nothing short of a violent flood 
from the north, which had hurled loads of coarse detritus with great vehemence 
1 Mr. Murchison was singularly indebted to Baron Berzelius, who warmly advocates the chief features 
of Sefstrom’s view, for having pointed out in detail the structure of the great os of Stockholm, and some 
remarkably beautiful examples of the polish and striation of the rocks, which are quite analogous to those 
around Edinburgh and in many other parts of the British Isles. 
4 A 2 
