GEOLOGY. 243 
also some districts in the interior of the country are exten- 
sively permeated by great beds of limestone ; and the lands 
are rich in humus. Themost fertile of these is the great plain 
in the district of Wasa, and the Kyrofluss, famous for the 
excellence of its rye. _A great portion of Finland, namely, 
the northern and the eastern, is covered with numerous 
marshes and moorlands, while in other parts vast morasses 
extend themselves widely, which here and there support 
heaths and other bushes. The forests are somewhat 
sparse and thin on the stretches of land near the coast, but 
in the interior there is no lack of these. 
‘The morasses, swamps, and lakes cover about one-third 
of the whole surface of the country. They are, in many 
respects, prejudicial to agriculture; they affect the climate 
unfavourably, through the cold and unhealthy evaporation 
which proceeds from them, and they often lay waste fine 
fields with a freezing exhalation. 
‘During a winter which, in some districts, extends over 
two-thirds of the year, everything lies on the ground 
prostrate, the rivers and the torrents cease to flow, and they 
are not unfrequently frozen down to their greatest depths. 
The sudden appearance of summer speedily melts both ice 
and snow, from which it follows that the rivers rise and tear 
along with force; the existing water-courses, rivers, great 
and small, and brooks and streams, are all of them inade- 
quate to the carrying off of such a mass of waters; the 
water rises higher than the banks, here and there it breaks 
through or overflows them, and carries away with it trees, 
and earth, and stones; these again accumulate at different 
spots and increase the overflowing inundatioa, which often 
extends itself more than a mile on both sides of the channel. 
In many places badly constructed dams for corn-mills, saw- 
mills, and fisheries, giving way, have added to the destruc- 
tive effects of the inundation. If these inundations come 
early in the season, then is the Finlander happy. But if 
the spring be late, or the inundation leave the water long 
on the land, and sometimes it remains all the summer 
through, then not only is the harvest and the whole 
