94 SCANDINAVIA. 



day at thirteen different points on the coast, and on the shores of Lakes Malar, 

 Hjelmar, Wetter, and Wener. 



As to the cause of these upheavals, some have regarded them as local 

 phenomena, others associating them with various disturbances of the surface in 

 Europe, or with the vital forces of the whole planetary system. Many causes may 

 even be at work, at times neutralising each other, at times co-operating, though 

 the period for deciding these points with certainty has not yet arrived. 



The Scandinavian Lakes. 



The irregularity of these oscillations is perhaps mainly due to the unfinished 

 state of the peninsula on both maritime slopes. The chief geological function of 

 the running waters is to regulate the sIojdos by giving them a parabolical curve 

 from the source to the mouth of the streams. The differences of level, the 

 perturbations of the coast, the thousand phenomena associated with the planetary 

 economy, have everywhere prevented the rivers from completing this work ; but 

 nowhere is the irregularity of the river beds greater than in Scandinavia. They 

 generally form a series of terraces rather than a uniform curve, and to the unequal 

 upheaval of the land must, at least in part, be attributed the formation of so many 

 lacustrine basins. 



The numerous pools and lakes on the Norwegian plateaux and upper valleys 

 have already been referred to. Towards the Arctic Ocean the escarpments are too 

 little developed to retain many lakes in their granite basins, while those occurring 

 at their base are merely detached remnants of fiords. But on the Swedish side, 

 and the Norwegian slopes facing the Kattegat and Skager Rak, the surface is 

 everywhere dotted over with bodies of still water. Here they are relatively more 

 numerous than in any other European region except South Finland, occupying 

 about one-thirteenth of the whole area of the peninsula. In certain Swedish 

 districts, especially Sodermannland, between Stockholm and Norrkoping, the lakes 

 are so common, that they are held in no more account than trees of the forest. 

 " When God severed land and water," says a local proverb, " He forgot Sodermann- 

 land." Nearl}' the whole of South Sweden has remained in a similar chaotic state, 

 the water surface occupying over one -eighth of the entire area. Most of the lake 

 shores are houseless, silent pine, birch, and oak forests, rarely relieved by the 

 songster's note, reflecting their foliage in the greenish waters, or dyed a reddish 

 hue by the tannin of the heather. Sedgy or reedy triicts encircle their borders, 

 while elsewhere huge blocks detached from the neighbouring cliffs raise their 

 crests above the surface. No sail enlivens the dreary waste of waters ; nothing 

 recalls the presence of man except a solitary bark moored to the shore, or the blue 

 smoke of an isolated cottage in some neighbouring glade. 



The extent of the stagnant waters is known to have been considerably reduced 

 during the historic period, a result due partly to river action levelling rocky ledges 

 and sweeping away moraines and âsar, partly to the hand of man here and there 

 constructino: drainag-e works. The numerous fortified enclosures met on the hill- 



