GEOLOGY. 243 



also some districts in the interior of the country are exten- 

 sively permeated by great beds of limestone ; and the lands 

 are rich in humus. The most fertile of these is the great plain 

 in the district of Wasa, and the Kyrofluss, famous for the 

 excellence of its rye. A great portion of Finland, namely, 

 the northern and the eastern, is covered with numerous 

 marshes and moorlands, while in other parts vast morasses 

 extend themselves widely, which here and there support 

 heaths and other bushes. The forests are somewhat 

 sparse and thin on the stretches of land near the coast, but 

 in the interior there is no lack of these. 



' The morasses, swamps, and lakes cover about one-third 

 of the whole surface of the country. They are, in many 

 respects, prejudicial to agriculture; they affect the climate 

 unfavourably, through the cold and unhealthy evaporation 

 which proceeds from them, and they often lay waste fine 

 fields with a freezing exhalation. 



1 During a winter which, in some districts, extends over 

 two-thirds of the year, everything lies on the ground 

 prostrate, the rivers and the torrents cease to flow, and they 

 are not unfrequently frozen down to their greatest depths. 

 The sudden appearance of summer speedily melts both ice 

 and snow, from which it follows that the rivers rise and tear 

 along with force ; the existing water-courses, rivers, great 

 and small, and brooks and streams, are all of them inade- 

 quate to the carrying off of such a mass of waters ; the 

 water rises higher than the banks, here and there it breaks 

 through or overflows them, and carries away with it trees, 

 and earth, and stones ; these again accumulate at different 

 spots and increase the overflowing inundation, which often 

 extends itself more than a mile on both sides of the channel. 

 In many places badly constructed dams for corn-mills, saw- 

 mills, and fisheries, giving way, have added to the destruc- 

 tive effects of the inundation. If these inundations come 

 early in the season, then is the Finlander happy. But if 

 the spring be late, or the inundation leave the water long 

 on the land, and sometimes it remains all the summer 

 through, then not only is the harvest and the whole 



