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From this letter and from the verses1 it is clear that Swedenborg
tlien really believed that the bones came from a giant, and it is therefore
unlikelv. as Carl Aurivillius supposes, that it was Swedenborg who
first nnderstood that a whale was in question, but the merit of doing
this is apparently due to Lars Roberg, Professor of Anatomy and
Practical Medicine at Upsala. Indeed it is clear from Swedenborg’s own
statement that it was from a doser examination of the bones after their
removal to Upsala that their real nature became evident.
Sven Nilsson appears to have understood long ago, (Skandinav. Fauna
1S47), that a species of whale different from the Greenland whale was
in question. In 18(>2 Lilljeborg called it »the Swedenborgian whale»,
and subsequently gave it the narae Hunterius Sicedenboryii. Carl Ar
ri-vi llius, who in 1X8S (1. c.) described a more complete skeleton of the
same species, found the year before in the glacial clay in the parisli of
Tvååker, Halland, about 5.5 km. from the coast and 15 m. above the
sea, refers it to the genus Balaena. and endeavors to show that it was
identical with or nearly related to the »south-ice-fish», living at Spitzbergen
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, so named to distinguish it
from the real Greenland whale, the »west-ice-fish».
Furthermore21, when Swedenborg explains the inland seas with their
fishes as relics from the former covering of water, the series of thought
is of quite the same kind as that which in later times led to the
expla-nation of the relict fauna in our great seas. He emphasizes the
statement that even at Hunneberg and Billingen there are found fishes in
the lakes »which are all of the same kind as those found in the sea
itself»., and he does not understand how the fishes could have gonc
thither if they were not left behind by the sea. It is however evident
that Swedenborg liere had in mind the fishes which are found in the
I »altic, for naturally no identity with the fisli fauna of the North Sea
can have been in question.
It is further advanced23 that the streams in the vallevs have cut
*/
down deeper in the degrec tliat the water has decreased, wherefore dried
up or deeply cut streams in vallevs furnish proofs of the liigher position
ol the water in former times. M hy he supposed that the black soil was
a proof ol the same has not become clear to me; he liere supports
him-self by Olof Rudbeck, Senior. The uneven topographical configuration
1 1 he verses by Swedenborg, it may be added, were publislied by Unge in his
dissertation: D’mertatio theologica de Consummatiom Mundi... Sub. Praesidio Dn.
Jo-hannis Pahnroot... submittit Andreas Unge... 2 Apr. 1710. Upsaliae, 1710.
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