THROUGH FINLAND. 
375 
their propofal. The great difficulty of paffing thofe cataraCls with 
a boat, containing more than two perfons, had rendered it cuf- 
tomary to perform this part of the journey by land. The woods 
being then impaflable, a narrow foot-path had been formed in 
the direction of the river. The impracticability of travelling 
through thofe woods proceeded from the way being obftruCled by 
under-wood, and the branches of firs and pine-trees ; from a 
Prong kind of mofs, which grows here in great abundance, and 
fometimes two feet high ; and from deep marfhy foil, where you 
are in danger every Pep of finking in the mire. Thefe obftaclcs 
impeded the paflage through the woods ; and to remedy the evil 
the people had cut down trees and laid them longitudinally one 
after the other, in fuch a manner that the paffenger as he walked 
along the trunks was obliged carefully to attend to his centre of 
gravity, and balance himfelf like a dancer on the tight rope. 
We again changed our boat at Tortula, fix miles from Tolafis, 
and purfued our voyage on the river all the way to Pello, which 
is twelve miles from Tortula. Pello is a village of four or five 
peafants houfes; from this place you fee the mountain Kittis, 
famous for being the laft point where Maupertuis concluded his 
trigonometrical operations, and remarkable for nothing elfe. 
I fhall here prefent the reader with Mr. Swamberg’s obferva- 
tions on the inaccuracy of Maupertuis’s meafurement.* Thefe 
obfervations are found in “ A report on a journey to Lapland, 
“ undertaken at the expence of the royal academy of fciences at 
* See Maupertuis’s Works, vol. iv. page 332. 
“ Stockholm, 
