342 Hon. Mr. Strang ways on the Rapids of Imatra. 
The general breadth of the Voxa is about a quarter of a verst; 
for the greater part of its course it may be considered rather as a 
chain of lakes than a river. Immediately above its entry into the 
narrow gorge of Imatra, its bed is obstructed by an island and a 
multitude of rocks which just appear above water : similar collections 
of sunk rocks occur in two or throe places near Sistola and also 
immediately below the rapids. The height of the hills which 
bound the valley on either side may be from two hundred and 
fifty to three hundred feet in some places. 
The river rushes with inconceivable fury through this narrow 
channel, which is perfectly free from any insulated rocks during 
its whole space ; and this being considerable, it is difficult to 
estimate the perpendicular fall. The noise, on approaching it from 
the southward, where its violence is at the utmost immediately 
before quitting the gorge, is tremendous ; the birches which hang 
over it are stripped of their leaves by the spray and almost con- 
stant draughts of wind which rush down with the stream. The 
inhabitants say, the level of the water and that of the lake Saima 
lowers daily. 
The formation of these rapids may be owing to the following 
causes. 
The friable texture of the rock, which is generally observed 
throughout the country ; its peculiar arrangement in this particular 
district in laminae easily separable, from the component parts of the 
granite being disposed in plates ; the circumstance of these laminae 
being nearly perpendicular on the spot in question, consequently 
receiving the pressure of a great body of water in the direction in 
which they are most easily divisible. That the water has followed 
this direction is evident from the very remarkable overhanging 
cliff on the east, pieces of which are falling every season, and from 
