30 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 



as such it would be considered by many ; but to travellers 

 who are fresh from Trollhattan or from those of Italy, its 

 beauties will appear somewhat questionable. This stage 

 is hilly ; the road, however, is good. 



'The next stage is long, and almost the whole way 

 through one unbroken pine forest, the trees coming in 

 many places quite down to the edge of the road ; the 

 whole country being covered with stupendous boulder- 

 stones, many of them far larger than the one which forms 

 the base of the celebrated statue of Peter the Great at 

 St. Petersburg. In some cases the rock pierces through 

 its thin covering of earth and vegetable matter, and 

 spreads its hard surface, uncovered by shrub or plant, over 

 a space of many square yards. At length the view opens, 

 and the Fortress of Frederickshamm is seen on the opposite 

 side of an arm of the sea, which runs some miles inland, 

 and round the shores of which the road winds its way. 



' Not far from Frederickshamm is Bisalaks, near which 

 are the granite quarries from which were drawn the 

 monolith columns for the Church of St. Isaac at St. 

 Petersburg.' * 



* These references, made first to the monolith on which stands the statue of Peter 

 the Great in St. Petersburg, and next to the monolith granite columns in St. Isaac's 

 Church, may render a few words of information not unacceptable to the untravelled 

 reader. 



In what may be considered the centre of the city is what was formerly known as St. 

 Isaac's Plain, now laid out as a public garden, skirted by the Neva, and almost entirely 

 surrounded with public buildings the Senate House, the Synod, the Admiralty, the 

 Winter Palace, the Glavnoi Stab, and St. Isaac's Church, &c. On the erection of this 

 church, of which it may be said it " was forty years in building," much treasure was 

 expended : inside, pillars of lapes luzuli and of malachite give adornment to the altar, 

 and outside are tiers of pillars of red granite, each of them consisting of a single stone. 

 Opposite to this church, but at a considerable distance from it, stands the colossal bronze 

 equestrian statue of Peter the Great, erected; to his memory by Catherine the Great. 

 This stands upon a very large boulder, slightly hewn into shape, which was found in the 

 fields, and transported thither for the purpose, and is an object not less remarkable 

 than the statue itself. At the opposite end of the plain, but not in the same line, stands 

 the monolith pillar erected arid dedicated to the memory of his brother Alexander I. by 

 his brother, the Emperor Nicholas statue and aiigel and church all looking toward 

 Finland, the land whence these polished monoliths were brought. To the St. Isaac's 

 Church there are four porches, supported by eight monoliths of polished granite in front, 

 and three on the side, each of them 56 feet in height, and 6 feet in diameter, with bases 

 and capitals of bronzeJ; and the five domes are supported by similar monoliths of 

 polished granite of smaller size. 



The boulder employed as a base for the equestrian statue of Peter measured when 

 found 42 feet long, 27 feet broad, and 21 feet in height, At one end was a crack, by 

 prolonging which a natural slope, admirably adapting the stone for the purpose for 

 which it was required, was supplied. It was rolled from Finland on cannon balls. 



