214 



ETjSSIA in EUROPE. 



surroundings. One on tlie Uleâ is nearly 40 feet high, but the most noteworthy- 

 are those of the Wiioxen, a few miles below its outflow from Lake Sai'ma, where it 

 rushes through the famous gorge of Imatra, 180 feet wide, with a fall of 70 feet in 

 a distance of 1,070 feet. At an elevation of 40 feet above their present level the 

 rocks show distinct traces of the former action of these rapids. 



The Finnish is no less rich than the Swedish seaboard in creeks, bays, and 

 inlets of all sorts, while its groups of islands and islets are far more numerous. Off 

 Vasa the Qvarken archipelago, with its thousand reefs, considerably narrows the 

 Gulf of Bothnia, and should the upheaval of the land continue at its present rate, they 

 must end by closing it altogether in two or three thousand years. At the forking of 

 the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland the multitudinous islets of the Aland group stretch 

 far westwards towards Sweden, and in wdnter are nearly always connected by a 



Fig. 105. — Aland Islands. 

 Scale 1 : 1,500,000. 



Depth under 27 i'athoms. 27 to 54 Fathoms 



54 to 108 Fathoms. 

 . 20 Miles. 



Over 108 Fathoms. 



continuous mass of ice. Even the channel separating them from the Swedish 

 coast is sometimes frozen, and in 1809 a Cossack troop was able to gallop across 

 and surprise the town of Grisselhamn. Wolves also cross over in severe seasons, 

 and ravage the inhabited islands, numbering altogether about eighty. 



The southern shores of Finland are also cut off" from the deep waters by 

 numerous isles and reefs, which greatly obstruct navigation. In the middle of the 

 gulf itself there are also some rocks, and even two islands — Hogland, or Suur-saari 

 (" Great Island "), and Laven-saari. Hogland lies exactly at the point where the 

 water begins to become brackish, so that it is drinkable on the east, but not on the 

 west side, where it contains 47 par cent, of salt. This hilly island, consisting 

 entirely of crystalline rocks, granite, diorite, quartz, and porphyry, seems to have 

 made its appearance in recent times, though joossessing the same batrachian fauna 

 us Finland, with which it is connected by ice almost every winter. 



