The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

UPHEAVAL OF THE LAND. 93rather than the sea which is changing its level. Leopold de Buch was the firstto assert, in 1807, that the whole Scandinavian peninsula was rising above thesurrounding seas. Here the greatest number of observations have been made,and Scandinavia has thus become the type with which are compared all otherslow upheavals elsewhere taking place.In many places the evidences ofrecent upheaval are perfectly visible from thesea, but on the Swedish side the movement is going on most rapidly towards thenorth. Thus at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Bothnia the upheaval isestimated at about 5j feet in the century, and at 3 feet 3 inches in the latitude ofthe Aland Islands, whereas at Kalmar there seems to bo no change.The southernextremity of Scania, which is now probably rising, appears to have formerlyslowly subsided. Several streets in the towns of Trelleborg, Ystad, and Malmohave already disappeared, and the last mentioned has subsided 5 feet since theobservations made by Linna?us. Submerged forests and peat beds found at acertain distance from the present coast-line, and where metal objects have beencollected, have caused geologists to suppose that since the ninth century thesubsidence has amounted to from 14 to 16 feet.Thanks to this movement, the Gulf of Bothnia would seem to be slowlydraining into the southern basin of the Baltic, and at the present rate of upheavalin the north three or four thousand years would suffice to change the Qvarkenarchipelago to an isthmus, and convert the northern section of the gulf into afresh-water lake.Oa 'the Norwegian seaboard the movement is far less regular, and nowhere sorapid as on the Swedish side of the Gulf of Bothnia. At some points even of thenorth coast no rising seems to have taken place at all. Thus Tioto, mentioned inthe sagas, is still the same large low island of former days, and a reef inTrondhjem-fiord, on which a swimmer could find a footing in the time of the firstvikings, appears to be still^at the same depth below the surface. Eugene Robertbelieves that no upheaval has taken place for three hundred years at Christiania,though others have found a rising of 12| inches per century on the shoresof the fiord.The periods of upheaval must have been frequently interrupted by more orless protracted intervals of rest.If most of the terraces consist of moraines levelledby the waves, or of alluvial deltas brought down by the inland streams, there areothers which have been hollowed out of the hard rock by the slow action of watercontinued for ages. But rocks gradually emerging could not have been muchworn on the surface. Lyell supposes that the Norwegian coast has been slowlyrising for at least twenty-four thousand years, while Kjerulf considers that themovement has been much more rapid.It is generally held that the underground upward pressure is not uniformthroughout the peninsula, but that it acts by a series of undulations, so thatbetween the regions of upheaval intermediate zones are left unaffected, or verynearly so. But further observation is needed to establish this view, and since1852 the mean level of the sea and Scandinavian plain has been studied day by