DANGER OF SUSPECTING WITHOUT PROPER EXAMINATION. 
281 
thus acquired additional interest : and Mr. 
Lyell, determined to investigate the facts him- 
self, made a tour into Sweden for the purpose. 
He visited a considerable part of the shores 
of the Bothnian Gulf, between Stockholm and 
Gefle, and of the western coast of Sweden, 
between Uddevola and Gothenburg, districts 
particularly alluded to by Celsius. He exa- 
mined several of the marks cut by the Swedish 
pilots, under the direction of the Swedish 
Academy of Sciences, in 1820, and found 
the level of the Baltic, in calm weather, 
several inches below the marks. He also 
found the level of the waters several feet below 
marks made seventy or a hundred years be- 
fore. He obtained similar results on the side 
of the ocean ; and found, in both districts, 
that the testimony of the inhabitants exactly 
agreed with that of their ancestors, recorded 
by Celsius. After confirming the accounts 
given by Von Buch, of the occurrence, on 
the side of the ocean, of elevated beds of 
recent shells at various heights, from lO to 200 
feet, Mr. Lyell discovered, in addition, 
deposits on the side of the Bothnian Gulf, 
between Stockholm and Gefle, containing 
fossil shells of the same species which now 
characterize the brackish waters of the sea. 
These occur at various elevations, of from 1 
to 100 feet, and sometimes reach fifty miles 
inland. The shells are partly marine and 
partly fluviatile: the marine species are iden- 
tical with those now living in the ocean, but 
are dwarfish in size, and never attain the 
average dimensions of those which live in 
waters sufficiently salt to enable them to 
reach their full development. Mr. Lyell 
concludes, in general, that certain parts of 
Sweden are undergoing a gradual rise, to the 
amount of tivo or three feet in a century, 
while other parts, visited by him, further to 
the south, appear to experience no movement. 
All these facts have an extremely valuable 
bearing on geological theories. The fact that 
a slow, and imperceptibly gradual rise, is now 
taking place in one large district of the earth, 
whilst a sinking has been also going on in 
another, afford us the strong ground of ob- 
served facts for admitting, as a true philoso- 
phical cause, the like slow, gradual, elevation 
of land out of the sea, in other cases and in 
earlier epochs. 'To account for the actual 
appearances of strata, now hundreds or thou- 
sands of feet above the sea, containing beds 
of marine shells and animal remains, we re- 
quire nothing but a repetition, or rather con- 
stant succession, of such events as are now 
going on in Sweden and Greenland, to account 
for all those level, or but slightly inclined de- 
positions, which, to so vast an extent, have 
contributed to form our existing continents. 
And where is the slightest ground of proba- 
bility for supposing these changes to have 
gone on at a more rapid rate formerly than 
nowl And if we form anything like the 
roughest calculation, what length of time shall 
we assign for the elevation of any one, even 
of the superficial and most recent forma- 
tions'? 
But the effects of earthquake waves is a 
subject not less worthy of consideration. Some 
geologists have contended that the sudden 
elevation of mountain chains, by volcanic 
forces, of whose intensity nothing, in the pre- 
sent degenerate condition of the globe, can 
convey any idea, caused mighty waves, delu- 
ging, at one sweep, vast regions of the earth, 
and accounting for numerous phenomena, 
which those of another scliool attribute to the 
action of ordinary causes, acting through im- 
mensely long periods of time. These earth- 
quake waves give us an idea of the extent to 
which such causes can act under the influence 
of volcanic forces, of the highest intensity of 
any within human experience; i.e., capable 
of producinglocal inroads, on particular coasts, 
to an extent absolutely insensible compared 
with those which must be imagined in order 
to account in this way for geological pheno- 
mena. We may then falculate, in some de- 
gree, what enormous intensity must be sup. 
posed in an earthquake, to cause an inun- 
dation of any considerable tract of country. 
Further, we must own, we find it impossible 
to conceive how the upheaving of a mountain, 
from the bottom of the sea, supposing it merely 
to ascend uniformly and steadily, could pro- 
duce any wave at all. It seems to us solely 
the trembling motion and rapid shock of the 
earthquake, which produces the wave. 
ON AN INCREDIBLE EXPERIMENT 
IN WHICH THE HUMAN BODY 
LOSES ITS WEIGHT. 
Related BY Sir David Brewster and 
ANOTHER. 
Highly exciting as the marvellous “ may 
be to a large proportion of mankind, even in 
the most advanced state of civilization yet 
known, it ought never to be drawn from 
sources whence truth may be obtained by 
ordinary industry of research, nor furnished 
by men whose dicta, from their intellectual 
rank, may be received, without examination 
or suspicion, not only by the ignorant and 
unreflecting, but by many who are in the 
habit generally of requiring proof whenever 
it is possible to be obtained. 
To suborn nature, and abuse knowledge, 
for the vulgar purpose of exciting surprise 
among tlie ignorant, can now never acquire 
more than a very short-lived success, and 
must, eventually, be productive of great 
humiliation. 
Besides, there is abundantly sufficient 
among the grand, and even among the minute, 
operations and productions of nature, to satisfy 
the most ravenous appetite for the “ wonder- 
ful” and the “ new,” without fabricating, 
or circulating, when fabricated by others, 
statements at utter variance with all known 
acts, and ushering them into the world in a 
manner tending to disturb that confidence in 
the constant uniformity in the laws of nature, 
which centuries of investigation have com- 
bined to produce, and upon which the philo- 
sophic mind reposes with satisfaction and 
delisht. 
