Foreign Notices. — -Nonvay and Lapland. 395 



The church or chapel here (on the left in^g. 112.) is of that peculiar 

 architecture which may be called the Russian ecclesiastic style : it is covered 

 with minarets and crosses exteriorly, and with pictures of saints within ; 

 and is open every day in the year, from early in the morning till sunset, for 

 the use of the family and their numerous domestics. Service is performed 

 by the priest at stated periods, without regard to the attendance of any 

 person ; and any person goes in and says his prayers, without regard to the 

 hours when the priest attends. 



Like most of the houses in and about Moscow, the mansion of Astan- 

 kina was built in a great hurry a few years previously to 1814, when we 

 saw it, and was then showing symptoms of decay. 



NORWAY AND LAPLAND. 



Cultivation of the Potato in Norway. — So slow has been the progress of 

 this root in Norway, that Von Buch states that it was scarcely known at 

 Bergen in 1762; a circumstance the more remarkable, as at least a centur^ 

 nas elapsed since its introduction into Iceland, the climate of which is less 

 favourable than that of Norway. In about twenty years the potato found 

 its way into the Nordland, and not long afterwards was introduced into 

 Finmark, where it has now become pretty general. The potatoes of Al- 

 ten, though seldom exceeding the size of a small egg, form, nevertheless, a 

 valuable addition to the resources of the inhabitants of Lapland. Their pro- 

 duce usually averages about thirty-fold. In one recent instance it reached 

 to forty- four. The price is usually from 3s. 6d. to 5s. the barrel, or sack, 

 of four English bushels. The potatoes grown in Finmark are remarkably 

 sweet to the taste, of a waxy nature, and in colour of a deepish yellow. 

 Some that were sent me lately from Alten, were planted in good garden 

 ground, in the early part of the summer, and prove to be a valuable kind 

 of early potato. The originals were all of a round shape; the produce, 

 however, which are good, and exceed the former several times in size, are 

 many of them oblong, and not unlike the common kidney. The remai'k- 

 able alleviation of disadvantage in respect to climate which Finmark pi-e- 

 sents, the frequent luxuriance of its indigenous plants, and the powerful 

 vivifying influence of an arctic summer, encourage the supposition that, 

 under proper management, its soil might be rendered far less ungrateful 

 than is generally supposed. The culture of the potato in particular, it may 

 be hoped, will both improve and become extended ; a circumstance that, in 

 the pi'esent almost absolute dependence of Finmark and Nordland upon 

 Russia for a supply of bread corn, is earnestly to be desired ; and, if we ex- 

 amine the character of the climate of the islands and coasts of Northern 

 Norway, the degree in which it differs from all countries under the same 

 parallel, and the circumstance by which this difference is apparently pro- 

 duced, such an expectation will not appear ill-founded. Von Buch, who 

 certainly did not form too favourable an idea of the climate of Finmark, 

 justly remarks, that in well secured cellars at Keilvig, close to the North 

 Cape, Hammerfest, and Alten, it never freezes ; that the stream of fresh 

 water, which enters the Bay of Hammerfest fi'om the little lake above it, 

 flows unfrozen during winter; and that the long grass, which springs among 

 the crevices of the rocks of the North Cape itself, does not cease to vege- 

 tate powerfully beneath the snow, in the absence of the sun. {Ca/pell 

 Brooke's Liafland, p. 205.) 



Flora of Alten. — In Capell Brooke's Travels in Lapland, upwards of 

 eighty species are enumerated as growing in the neighbourhood of Alten. 

 Among the most rare of these plants are the Pedicularis lappdnica, and 

 Sceptrum Carohwztm. The latter magnificent plant was found by the late 

 lamented Mr. Andrew Knight, jun., in a bog near Bosecop, and was 5 ft. in 

 height ; he met, also, with the i?hododendron lappdnicum in abundance.; 



