52 CAUSES OF THIS SIMILARITY. [Chap. III.
constitution o f hills scattered through a country, and lying at a great
distance from each other, confined to S-weden. What can be more
close than the resemblance between the composition of Arthur’s-seat,
Salisbury-craig, the Castle-hill, Stirling-castle-hill, the Abbey-craig, and
Craig Forth, hills strewed ove.r the flat country through which the
river Forth runs ? What can be more strikingly similar than the hills
which are scattered in the environs o f Paris ? and which have been so
lately described by Brongniart and Cuvier ? But certainly no number o f
hills can be mentioned which have a greater similarity to each other in
their structure, than the hills of W est Gothland. Shall we suppose, that
at one period these beds' covered the whole flat country o f West Gothland,
and that by some unknown cause they have; been washed away
and removed, with the exception o f the twelve hills above mentioned,
which from their greater hardness, or from some unknown favourable
circumstance in their position, were enabled to resist the force which
swept away all the rest? This opinion may appear to many too
violent a supposition to be admitted. But that the surface o f this
globe o f ours has undergone the most stupendous and gigantic
changes since its original formation, and even since it was inhabited by
plants and animals, is a fact too obvious to require proof or admit of
denial. The whole flat country o f Sweden, even where nothing but
alluvial soil appears, is thickly strewed with enormous blocks of
gneiss, some nearly as large as a small hill ; but all rounded in the
edges, and obviously lying over the alluvial soil. Whether we believe
with some, that these blocks have been brought from a distance by
some enormous torrents o f waters; or with others, that they are the
remains o f rocks of gneiss which formerly covered the country where
they lie, but which have been all worn away by time, except these
blocks which were enabled by their superior hardness to resist the
agency that destroyed all the rest: whichever o f these opinions we
adopt, and scarcely any other seems conceivable, it is an obvious consequence
that the surface must have undergone prodigious changes
since the original creation of the earth.
I f the latter opinion, which is that of Werner and his school, be con-
CJiap. III.] p a r t O F WEST GOTHLAND A L LU V IA L . 5 3
sidered as preferable, in that case some modification seems necessary in
the Wernerian distribution of rocks. For the coal country in the south
of Sweden is as thick strewed with these blocks as any other part o f the
country. "Now as all coal.formations belong to floetz rocks, and as this
in Sweden possesses the characters of the independent coal formation,
we cannot suppose gneiss rocks to have covered it at any former
period, without altering our present opinions. Perhaps indeed it will
be said that the coal country in Sweden is o f so sm a ll extent, that the
blocks might have easily made their way to it from the neighbouring
country to the north, where gneiss rocks still exist in situ. Nor will I
deny that all the blocks o f gneiss, which I saw over the coal country in
Sweden, were but o f a small size, and might therefore have been
transported without much difficulty.
The rest o f West Gothland, which comprehends the middle o f the
country, and all that part o f it which borders upon the great lakes, is
in a geological point of view of little importance. I t consists o f alluvial
soil, partly clay and partly sand, and is thick scattered all over with
blocks of gneiss, many of them of immense size. Besides gneiss, I
observed occasionally hornblende, felspar, and the other rocks interspersed
in the gneiss rocks in beds, occurring also in blocks. Tins circumstance
certainly favours the opinion that these blocks formerly
existed in situ in the state o f rocks. The reader will form a tolerably
accurate idea of the structure o f West Gothland from the map constructed
by Baron Hermelin, which accompanies this chapter. Mineralogists
in general, and Sweden in particular, lie under very great obligations
to Hermelin, for his beautiful maps o f the Swedish provinces,
which are not only the finest in point of execution, but by far the most
accurate that have ever been published in Sweden, Some of them
were engraved in London, but others were executed in Stockholm.
The execution of both, at least as far as my judgment goes, is nearly
equal.
I shall finish this chapter with a list of all the quadrupeds and birds
* which have been found in the kingdom of Gothland.* This I copy from
* Sweden is divided into three kingdoms ox distriets; Norrland, Svealand, or Sweden,