On the Superficial Detritus of Sweden, and on the Probable Causes which have affected the Surface of the Rocks in the Central and Southern portions of that kingdom

Abstract

In the work on Russia and the adjoining countries published by M. de Verneuil, Count Keyserling and myself, the subject of the erratic and superficial phænomena of Scandinavia and the northern regions has been discussed at some length, the facts being derived from our joint observations in Russia, and also from personal researches of my own in Poland, Norway and Sweden during the summers of 1843 and 1844. Having since revisited Sweden, and having examined certain districts of that country in company with M. de Verneuil, I beg to lay before the Geological Society some additional data which we there collected, confirming and enlarging the views at which I had previously arrived, and still further elucidating the subject. The superficial phænomena of Sweden so remarkable, that, to say nothing of native authors, few foreign .geologists have visited that kingdom without recording the ilnpresslon which their inspection produced. M. Alex. Brongniart published in the year 1828 a memoir on the erratic blocks of Sweden, in which, referring to De Luc, De Saussure, and others who had treated generally of the distribution of coarse detritus, he cites MM. Escher and yon Buch (particularly tile latter) as having well considered the northern examples. In this memoir M. Brongniart, after describing the linear form of the Osart, and the size, form and nature of their materials, specially calls attention to the fact, that their chief mass is composed of completely rounded water-worn gravel, often very coarse and containing boulders of some magnitude; and states,