OCR Text |
Show 294 ACTION OF CURRENTS ON THE SHORES OF TliE BALTIC. to exist between the levels of the two oceans. It is scarcely necessary to remark how much all points relating to the p.ermanence of the mean level of the sea must affect our reasomng on the phenomena of estuary deposits ; and it i? to be hoped, that further experiments will be made to ascertam the amount of irregularity, if any exist. ACTION OF CURRENTS IN INLAND LAKES AND SEAS. Coast of the Baltic.-In such large bodies of water as the North American lakes, the continuance of a strong wind in one direction often causes the elevation of the water and its accumulation on the leeward side; and while the equilibrium is bein<Y restored, powerful currents are occasioned. By this mea~s the finer sedimentary particles, as we before mentioned, are borne far out from the deltas, and argillaceous and calcareous marls are formed far from the shores. In the Euxine, also, althouO'h free from tides, we learn from Pallas, that there is a sufficien~ly strong current to undermine the cliffs in many parts, and particularly in the Crimea. But the fo~·ce of c~rrents is exerted in a much more powerful degree m seas hke the Mediterranean and the Baltic, where strong currents set in from the ocean, whether driven in during tempests or from othe1· more constant causes. The current which runs through the CatteO'at or channel of communication between the German b ' . Ocean and the Baltic, not only commits dreadful devastat1~ns on the isles of the Danish Archipelago, but acts, though w1:h less energy, on the coasts far in the interior, as, for example, m the vicinity of Dantzic *. The continu.ance of nm:th-westerly gales and storms in the Atlantic, durmg the hexght of. the spring-tides, has often been attended. with the most fatal dJs.asters on the Danish coast, where, durmg the last ten centunes, we find authentic accounts of the wearing down of. promo~tories, the deepening of gulfs, the conversion of penmsulas mto * Thus in the year 1800, near the village of J ershoft a great mass was pDrojectt~d by a lands' lip into the sea. Hela, a po·m t of 1a u d runm·n g out befo. re S an ZIC, 1 d t d £ rther north m am an I was formerly much broader than at presen ; an a 1 '. 73 who woods and territories have been torn away by the sea.-Hoif, vo · 1 '' P· 1 cites Pisansky. ClMBRlAN DELUGE. 2U5 islands, and the waste of isles ; while in several cases marsh land, defended for centuries by dikes, has at last been overflowed, and thousands of the inhabitants whelmed in the waves*. We have before enumerated the ravages of the ocean on the eastern shores of Sleswick; and as we find memorials of a series of like catastrophes on the western coast of that peninsula, we can scarcely doubt that a large opening will, at some future period, connect the Baltic with the North Sea. Jutland was the Cimbrica Chersonesus of the ancients, and was then evidently the theatre of similar calamities; for Florus says, "Cimbri, Theutoni, atque Tigurini, ab extremis Gallire profugi, cum terras eorum inundasset Oceanus, novas sedes toto orbe qurerebantt." Some hav<~ wished to connect this "Cimbrian deluge,, with the bursting of the isthmus between England and France, and with other supposed convulsions ; but when we consider the annihilation of Hcligoland and Northstranu, and the other terrific inundations in Jutland and Holstein since the Christian era, wherein thousands have perished, we need not resort to hypothetical agents to account for the historical relation. The wave which, in 1634, devastated the whole coast of Jutland, committeu such havoc, that we must be cautious how we reject hastily the traditions of like catastrophes on the coasts of Kent, Cornwall, Pembrokeshire, and Cardigan; for, however sceptical we may be as to the amount of territory destroyed, it is very possible that former inroads of the sea may have been greater on those shores than any witnessed in modern times. * Thus the island Barsoe, on the coast of Sleswick, has lost year after year an acre at a time. The island Alsen suffers in like manner. The peninsula. Zingst was converted into an island in 1625. There is u. tradition, that the isle of Rugen (which is composed of tertiary limestone) was originally torn by a storm from the main land of Pomerania ; and it is known, in later times, to have lost ground, as in the year 1625, when a tract of lancl was carried away. Some of the islands which have wasted away consist of ancient alluvial accumulations, containing blocks of granite, which are also spread over the neighbouring main ~and. The Marsh Islands are mere banks, like the lands fonncd of the "warp, ~~ the Hu~ber, protected by dikes. Some of them, after having been inhabited With security for more than ten centuries, have Leen suddenly overwhelmed. In this manner, in 1216, 110 less than ten thousand of the inhabitants of .Eyderstede and Ditmarsch perished; and on the 11th of October, 1634, the islands and the whole coast as far as Jutland suffered by a dreadful deluge. t Lib, iii., cap. 3. · |