146 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



charities to my country and the public, I gained a 

 degree of experience which I hope will be useful to 

 myself and others . . .' He continues with great 

 complacency. 



' I have as yet beheld no foreign land that abounds 

 more with natural curiosities of all kinds than our own ; 

 none which presents so many, such great, such wonderful 

 works of nature : whether we consider the magazine of 

 snow heaped up for so many ages upon our Alps, and 

 amongst these vast tracts of snow green meadows and 

 delicious valleys here and there peeping ; or the lofty 

 heads of mountains, the craggy precipices of rocks ; or 

 the sun concealed from our eyes for so many months, 

 and hence a thick Cimmerian darkness spread over our 

 hemisphere, or else at another season darting his rays 

 continually along the horizon. ... To give a few ex- 

 amples. The sagacious searcher after nature will find 

 wherewithal to sharpen and exercise his attention in 

 beholding the top of Mount Swucku, of so immense a 

 height that it reaches above the clouds. The wonderful 

 structure of Mount Torsburg (in Gothland), the horrid 

 precipices of the rock BISkulla, in an island of that 

 name situated near Oland, which presents by its name, 

 still used among the Suegothic vulgar, 1 no less than 

 by its dismal aspect, an idea of the stupidity and super- 

 stition of that ancient people.' 



1 Besides the wonderful vaults and caverns of the 



1 Linnaeus does not give this old vulgar name ; the island is now 

 generally called Jungfrun the Maiden's Isle. 



