castle of Abo is now ten feet above the water, so that
there may have been a considerable rise of the land at that point since
the building was erected.

Playfair, in his "Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory," in 1802,
admitted the sufficiency of the proofs adduced by Celsius, but
attributed the change of level to the movement of the land, rather than
to a diminution of the waters. He observed, "that in order to depress or
elevate the absolute level of the sea, by a given quantity, in any one
place, we must depress or elevate it by the same quantity over the whole
surface of the earth; whereas no such necessity exists with respect to
the elevation or depression of the land."[731] The hypothesis of the
rising of the land he adds, "agrees well with the Huttonian theory,
which holds, that our continents are subject to be acted upon by the
expansive forces of the mineral regions; that by these forces they have
been actually raised up, and are sustained by them in their present
situation.[732]

In the year 1807, Von Buch, after returning from a tour in Scandinavia,
announced his conviction, "that the whole country, from Frederickshall
in Norway to Abo in Finland, and perhaps as far as St. Petersburg, was
slowly and insensibly rising." He also suggested "that Sweden may rise
more than Norway, and the northern more than the southern part."[733] He
was led to these conclusions principally by information obtained from
the inhabitants and pilots, and in part by the occurrence of marine
shells of recent species, which he had found at several points on the
coast of Norway above the level of the sea. He also mentions the marks
set on the rocks. Von Buch, therefore, has the merit of being the first
geologist who, after a personal examination of the evidence, declared in
favor of the rise of land in Scandinavia.

The attention excited by this subject in the early part of the last
century, induced many philosophers in Sweden to endeavor to determine,
by accurate observations, whether the standard level of the Baltic was
really subject to periodical variations; and under their direction,
lines or grooves, indicating the ordinary level of the water on a calm
day, together with the date of the year, were chiselled out upon the
rocks. In 1820-21, all the marks made before those years were examined
by the officers of the pilotage establishment of Sweden; and in their
report to the Royal Academy of Stockholm they declared, that on
compa