LxXiI 
Birps. 
Fisu, 
ALAND IsLeEs, 
GULPH OF 
FINLAND. 
‘PETERSBURG. 
Ri OS ST AINE MP ER E. 
Houfe of Peafants in the national diet *. But thefe were at all times the mot 
cultivated of this diftinct race. They trained the Rein-deer to the fledge, domefti- 
cated it from its wild ftate, and made it the fubftitute for the Cow. 
Their country, which penetrates even to the Northern ocean, confifts of favaze 
mountains, woods, vaft marfhes, rivers, and lakes, the haunts of myriads of water- 
fowl, which refort here in fummer to breed, free from the difturbance of mankind. 
Linnz&us, the great explorer of thefe deferts, my venerated example! mentions 
them as exceeding in numbers the armies of Xerxes ; re-migrating, with him, in 
autumn, eight entire days and nights, to feek fuftenance on the fhores and waters 
of more favorable climates +. 
Their lakes and rivers abound in fifh; yet the number of fpecies are few. 
Thefe are the Ten-fpined Stickle-back, Br. Zool. iii. N° 130; Salmon, N° 143, 
in great abundance, which force their way to the very heads of the furious rivers 
of Tornea and Kiemi, to depofit their fpawn; Char, N° 149, are found in the 
lakes in great abundance; and Graylings, N° 150, in the rivers; Gwiniads, N* 
152, are taken of eight or ten pounds weight; Pikes, N° 153, fometimes eight 
feet long ; and Perch, N° 124, of an incredible fize § ; and the Salmo Albula, 
Faun. Suec. N° 353, clofes the lift of thofe of the Lapland lakes and rivers. 
The mouth of the gulph of Bothnia is filled with a prodigious clufter of little 
iflands and rocks, dangerous to mariners. Aland is the chief, an ifland of fur- 
prifing rockinefs, and with all the other_afpects as if torn from the continent by 
fome mighty convulfion. The gulph of Finland extends from thence due eatt, 
and has, on its northern coaft, a chain of fimilar iflands, and a few fprinkled over 
the channel. All the coaft and all its ifles are compofed of red or grey granite ; 
and all the coafts of Sweden are the fame, mixed in places with fand-ftones. Fin- 
land and Carelia are the bounds of the gulph on this fide: Livonia, the granary of 
the north, and Jugria, on the other. Thefe countries, with Ruffia, made part of 
the European Scythia, or Sarmatia; and this part of the Baltic has been fometimes 
ftyled Mare Scythicum, and Mare Sarmaticum||. The gulph decreafes in depth 
from fixty to five fathoms, as you advance towards Cron/fadt, the great naval 
arfenal of Ruffia. From thence is twelve miles of fhallow water to Peter/burg, 
that glorious creation of PETER the Great; the inlet of wealth and fcience into 
his vaft dominions, before his time inacceffible to the reft of Europe, unlefs by the 
tedious voyage of the White fea; and a country unknown, but by the report of the 
fplendid barbarifm of its tyrants. Peter was formed with a fingular mixture of 
* Anderfon, ii. 410. t Ameen, Acad. iv. 570. Fl. Lap. 273. § Scheffer’s Lapland. 
\| Ptolemy. 
5 endowments 
