“Elevation and Subsidence”

Abstract

IN a paper I read before a full meeting of the Geological Association on March 2 last, of which a brief notice is given in NATURE, vol. xxvii. p. 523, I discussed the probability of subsidence of land, in certain cases, being due to loading by local accumulations of terrestrial matter acting upon a deflectible crust supported upon a viscous interior. The greatest effects, I imagined, from this cause, were due to local accumulations of ice past and present, particularly about the poles of the earth; but that secondary and important effects were due to the weight of accumulations of solid mineral matter from denudations being carried by oceanic currents and winds, from coral deposition, and the reaction of volcanic outflows. One illustration I proposed was that the sinking of the coast of Greenland was probably due to the weight of inland accumulation of ice, which proposition I thought was original, but Mr. Gardner (NATURE, vol. xxviii. p. 324) says—“It has often been supposed that the sinking of the coast of Greenland is similarly due to its icecap.” I should feel obliged if Mr. Gardner would point out references where this has been proposed, as I thought I had read the literature of the subject, and I fear that this part of my paper is less original than I assumed.