46 THE FOREST LANDS OF FINLAND. 



tion, as art and skill have as yet done little to assist 

 nature, in utilising the provision made, by making canals 

 and connecting by short courses widely extending water- 

 systems. 



' Over the greater portion of these glorious lakes and 

 streams rests the gloomy silence of the wilderness, and on 

 their shores have arisen but few of the abodes of man.' 



The following additional information is supplied in great 

 part by Dr Gabriel Rein, Professor of History in the 

 University of Helsingfors, in a brochure published by him 

 in 1839, under the title of Daratcllung des Gross-furst- 

 enthams Finland: 



'The granite rocks of the mainland stretch, more especi- 

 ally in the south, far into the sea, and form in part 

 numerous capes, and in part innumerable rocky islands, on 

 the south and south-west coast of Finland, which there 

 bear the local name of Schaeren. Navigation is thus 

 made very perilous ; but there is also found there a great 

 many excellent havens. On the Finnish coast of the 

 Gulf of Bothnia there are fewer of these islands, but there 

 is a gradual shallowing of the sea, compelling the dwellers 

 on the coast to have resource to artificial works to deepen 

 navigable water, or to select for havens places on the 

 extremity of the coast. By highland and mountain 

 ranges Finland is divided into five principal water- 

 systems, of which one finds a outlet in the frozen ocean, 

 two in the Gulf of Bothnia, one in the Gulf of Finland, 

 and one in Lake Ladoga. 



'I. The water-system of northern Lapland, the first 

 mentioned, separated from the others by its southern 

 boundary of high land, has its inclination to the north. 

 Its most extensive lake, Enare Trask, empties itself 

 through the Patsjoki, in the Government of Archangel, 

 into the Gulf of Passwik, on the southern coast of the 

 Warangerfjord. The principal river, the Tanaelf, falls 

 into the Tanafjord in Norway. 



