126 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



stream of antique Russia, the seat of Asa gods, when their 

 Alan kindred still possessed the hanks of the Don. At that 

 period, Sacae wandered over the newly recovered plains of 

 western Siberia, and the great streams just mentioned had 

 ceased to form Archipelagos of upland islands and peninsulas, 

 between shallow creeks, marshy woods, and salt water pools, 

 not even now obliterated.* Leaving, for the present, other 

 considerations affecting the Euxine, till the volcanic system of 

 eastern Europe is under review, we proceed with the Scandi- 

 navian peninsula. 



ARCTIC EUROPE. 



From Cape North, to the southward and east, as already 

 observed, the Lapland high lands are a system spreading to 

 the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, and, in connection with the 

 high mountain chain of Scandinavia, once formed a gTeat 

 island, the Scansia of Jornandes. The gulf and White Sea 

 being still connected, in 1450, by the Kitkacerva, and, probably, 

 also, by the Ulea Lakes ; and, more anciently, the Ladoga and 

 Onega, communicating, by the Ozero Sig and Ozero Vigo, 

 with the Arctic Sea. The greater part of Finland, thick set 

 with pools, is in itself strong evidence of the fact. At the 

 summit of the Gulf of Bothnia, it had long been observed that 

 the sea was retiring by slow degrees, not so much from the 

 effect of fresh water deposits, as, according to a common 

 opinion, by a progressive rising of the submarine floor ; for 

 many outlying rocks, known from ancient times by distinct 



* The Moscow uplands are given at 460 feet above the level of the sea ; 

 but the base of the hills, and water-courses, can scarcely amount to 100 

 feet, notwithstanding the continuous rising of the upper soil, by the 

 deposits from above, washed down by rains and melting snows. In 

 Poland, the canals between the two seas require only from ten to fifteen 

 locks, although it does not appear that careful surveys had determined the 

 lowest levels. 



