CHANGES IN THE EARTH'S SURFACE.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 2 May 1881, Page 2

CHANGES IN THE EARTH'S SURFACE.

» The changes in level of the earth's sur* face, which must have been very rapid and TB9t in the early geological ages, are yet in progress. Aside from paroxysmal changes, such as tbe'volcanio upheaval of an island now sid then, great areas of land in different parts' of the globe are undergoing a slow process of elevation or subsidence. Iv Greenland a subsidence is taking "place. For 600 miles, from Disco Bay to the Firth of Igaliko, the coast has been sinking for four centuries past. Old buildings and islands have been submerged, and the Moravisu set* tiers have had to put down new poles for their boats, the old ones standing, Lyeli observes, 'as silent witnesses of the change." On the North American coast, south of Greenland, from Labrador to New jersey, it is supposed that similar changes are going on. G* HHr. r Oook oon« eludes that a slow subsidence is progress* ing along the coasts of New -Jersey, Long Island, and Martha's Vineyard, and, according to A. Gesnor, the land is rising at St. John, in New Brunswick ; sinking at the island of Grand Menan ; rising on the coast opposite, at Bathurst 3 sinking about the Bay of Fundy, where there are regions of stumps submerged thirty-five feet at high tide, and rising at Prince Edward's Island. It is believed that in the Paciflo Ocean the fcoral Islands have, in some portions, sunk not less than 6000 feet during comparatively recent geologic times. Surveys made in Norther Sweden have shown, according to Lyell, that the coast at that point ia rising at the rate of about four feet in a century.