Are the facts contained in the memoir in question of a nature to overthrow this opinion? They do not appear so to us. The two series of observations which are adduced, only shew a fall upon the coasts of Sweden, properly so called, that is to say, upon the west coast of the Baltic, and the east coast of the Cattegat. Two observations only have been made upon the coasts of Finland, toward the extremity of the Gulf of Bothnia. These facts would perfectly accord with the opinion of those who think that the currents determined from the north to the south of the Baltic by the numerous streams which rush into it, push the waters toward the south shore, that of Pomerania, Mecklenbourg, and Holstein; and that the waters consequently gain upon the land on this coast, as numerous historical facts attest, while they retire along the northern shores, those of the Gulf of Bothnia. Be this as it may, the question as to the constancy of the level of the sea cannot be considered as decided, until a long series of observations shall have been made upon authentic and perfectly fixed measures erected upon all the shores of the different seas, and of the different regions of the ocean. Those which have been published in the Swedish Transactions furnish important documents for this purpose; and similar ones should be begun to be collected in other countries. The phenomena exhibited by the waters of the Baltic engaged the attention of two rival speculators, Playfair and Deluc; and their views are often alluded to by geologists. We shall here state them in their own words. Professor Playfair, in his well known and elegant work on the Huttonian Theory of the Earth, has the following remarks: “If we proceed further to the north, to the shores of the _Baltic_ for instance, we have undoubted evidence of a _change of level_ in the same direction as on our own shores. The level of the sea has been represented as lowering at so great a rate as _forty inches in a century_. Celsius observed, that several rocks which are now above the water, were not long ago sunken rocks, and dangerous to navigators; and he took particular notice of one which, in the year 1680, was on the surface of the water, and, in the year 1731, was 20½ Swedish inches above it. From an inscription near _Aspo_, in the lake _Melar_, which communicates with the _Baltic_, engraved, as is supposed, about five centuries ago, the level of the sea appears to have sunk in that time no less than thirteen Swedish feet. All these facts, with many more which it is unnecessary to enumerate, make the _gradual depression_, not only of the _Baltic_, but of the whole _Northern Ocean_, a matter of certainty.”--_Playfair’s Illustrations_, p. 445. That indefatigable and accurate observer De Luc, has the following commentary on the preceding passage.