THE SAIMA SEE. 27 



foundations of the rocky barriers on either side, and where 

 the freezing of water percolating into crevices of the rocks 

 loosens and separates large blocks from the continuous 

 bed or strata, the precipitation of these into the bed of 

 the torrent the accumulation of all these rocks must tend 

 to produce such a torrent as the one we here see. 



On my return from Kuopia, as on the occasion of my 

 return journey from Imatra twelve years before, I passed 

 through Willmanstrand. On returning from Kuopia I made 

 my way through woodlands to the railway station of Simola, 

 some twenty versts, or fourteen miles distant. In the 

 course of this little journey I saw abundance of mosses 

 and lichens, like to those of which I have spoken, as seen 

 by me at the Falls of Imatra. 



The trees I have seen in Finland are not destitute of 

 lichens, but trees covered with them are comparatively 

 rare, while on the rocks they abound. Large boulders, 

 boulders the size of a cottage, may be seen marled or 

 variagated by a covering of lichens, which, like the lakes 

 and islands, may to be reckoned by thousands. I have 

 seen on rocks unbroken patches of moss twelve square feet 

 in extent. I have seen patches of what seemed an hundred 

 square inches in extent, rising in the centre three or 

 four inches high. And again and again I have seen 

 stones which might be presented in a class room as 

 specimens of the alleged succession of natural crops on 

 bare rock lichens, mosses, and ferns, growing there 

 simultaneously. In one case, and, according to my 

 impression in many more, I saw lichens, mosses, ferns, 

 and plants of Gnaphalium, and of the cranberry and of the 

 whortleberry; and on many I have seen the roots of trees 

 which had been burned in a forest fire. Much of the soil 

 may have been blown thither, and rested in hollows, or 

 have found a resting place in cracks and rents ; but the 

 appearances presented were not the less interesting. I 

 examined a few ; in most of these the extremities of the 

 roots of the flowering plants terminated in decayed or 

 decaying patch of moss. 



