Livro Scepticism in Geology and the Reasons for It, by Verifier

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.

1877 Excerpt: ... Chap. v. RISE OF LAND IN SWEDEN. 45 CHAPTER V. PRESENT RISE OF LAND IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY IS IT A FACT THAT IT DOES RISE? That a considerable part of the continent of N." Europe is at the present time undergoing an upward movement is positively asserted in all recent English works of geology, and is generally believed by geologists.

Thus, in an elementary school-book 1 it is stated that "the Scandinavian Peninsula offers a fine example of tranquil movements of elevation and depression." The phenomenon, if real, is remarkable in a geological point of view, because it is effected entirely without the interposition of earthquakes, which are almost unknown in Scandinavia.

Thus, while the fact itself is doubtful, geology can furnish no reason why it should occur, which is a strong prima facie argument against it. Linnseus, it is true, shared in the belief of a rise, but in his time no attempt had been made at accurate observation.

"Von Buch, in 1807, was the first 1 Geikie's Geology, p. 66. geologist who, from information derived from inhabitants and pilots on the spot, declared his conviction that the whole of Scandinavia was slowly and insensibly rising.

In recent times marks have been made on rocks on the shores of the Baltic, and observations with levels taken both on the Swedish and Prussian coasts. The results hitherto have not been satisfactory; no two sets of observations, made even by those who assert a rise, agree as to the rate and amount of it; and some of them throw doubt on the existence of any rise whatever.

Sir Charles Lyell having visited the Baltic, 1834, on purpose, concluded that he had ascertained by a comparison of measurements, made at different periods, that the land had risen by an insensible motion, --Principles, vol.

L p. 314; but in vo...