CHAPTER II. 



THE SCANDINAVIAN PENINSULA. 



(Norway and Sweden.) 



General Features, 



I HE great northern peninsula comprises two distinct states, though 

 ruled by one sovereign, and otherwise bound together by ties of a 



- very intimate character. Still they watch with careful jealousy 

 over their mutual political independence, and even in their social 

 usages the two peoples arc sharply contrasted. From the geogra- 

 phical point of view also Norway and Sweden [Norge and Scerige) form equally 

 distinct natural regions, the one consisting mainly of plateaux and highlands 

 rising abruptly on the Atlantic side, while the other forms an extensive incline 

 falling gradually towards an inland sea. 



But this physical contrast and their separate autonomy do not prevent the 

 "VVesterfold and Austerfold, as, they were formerly called, from forming a unity 

 distinct from that of other European lands, and which should therefore be studied 

 as a whole. The term Scandinavia, or Island of Scandia, formerly restricted to 

 the southern extremity of Sweden, has been gradually extended to the entire 

 peninsula independently of its political divisions, and this very community of 

 name seems to point at a general and permanent fusion of the two regions. 



The natural frontier of the peninsula connects the northern extremity of the 

 Gulf of Bothnia directly with the Yaranger-fiord, on the Frozen Ocean, and 

 although political treaties have caused the line to recede in the most eccentric 

 manner westwards, thus allowing Russia to cut off Finmark almost completely 

 from the rest of Scandinavia, such conventional limits traced across extensive 

 wastes have but little practical importance. 



Even within its present reduced limits, Scandinavia is one of the most extensive 

 regions in Europe, ranking in size next to Russia. Owing to its position on an 

 inland sea giving access to Western and Central Europe, and on the Atlantic 

 placing it in relation with the rest of the world, it could not fail to exercise a 

 certain influence in determining the balance of power, and the Goths, Norsemen, 



