surface of the peninsula, it is calculated, that an area of nearly 3,700 square miles is elevated above the line of constant congelation, and is consequently always buried under snow. The few roads that traverse the more desolate parts of the highlands have small houses called field-stuer, built for travellers, as a refuge in storms.-Rivers, fed from the snow mountains, are extremely numerous, but the steep declinations of the surface render them to a great extent wild ungovernable torrents, of little avail to navigation, often forming magnificent waterfalls. The Glommen, which enters the Skager Rack from Norway, and the Gotha, which flows into the Cattegat from Sweden, are the most important examples, but the greatest volume of water proceeds by an immense number of channels to the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic.-Between Lake Wener and the sea, the Gotha forms a remarkably fine waterfall at Trollhatten, descending in successive leaps about 130 feet, the greatest descent of such a body of water in Europe. To show the resistless power of the element to the visitor, a log of wood of gigantic dimensions is often sent down the fall, being borne to its foot almost in an instant, tossing like a feather on the surface of the torrent.-Favoured by the aspect of the country, and its numerous streams, lakes are abundant, comprising the largest expanses in Europe after those of Russia; Lakes Wener, Wetter, and Mælar, in the south of Sweden, respectively covering areas of 2,130, 839, and 763 square miles.

283. Extending several degrees within the arctic circle, the climate is correspondingly rigorous, though far from being so cold as in the same latitude in Asia and America. In the extreme north, the annual mean temperature is below the freezing point, and along the eastern side of the peninsula, the temperature is lower than in the western, at the same elevation. A long severe winter alternates with a short warm summer, the two so rapidly interchanging as almost to efface spring and autumn from the calendar of the seasons. Intense frost prevails in the northern districts from October to April, and the country wears a garb of snow from September to June, but in July and August the heat is frequently almost insupportable. This great warmth arises from the protracted period during which the sun is above the horizon at the summer solstice, the longest

day of Scandinavia, lasts nineteen or twenty hours in the south, and comprises several weeks in the north, while nearly three months of continuous daylight occur at the North Cape. Hence cereal cultivation is successful in favourable sites at a very high latitude, wheat extending as far north as Drontheim, the hardier cereals, barley and rye, being raised within the arctic circle. The north limit of the oak falls short of that of wheat; the mountain-ash, aspen, spruce fir, and pine, range within the zone of extreme cold; but the birch extends the furthest north of ligneous vegetation in Scandinavia, occurring but as a mere bush, in sheltered hollows, towards the North Cape. The characteristic animals of the country are the bear, wolf, glutton, lemming, elk, and reindeer.

284. Norway consists of three principal districts, divided into 5 provinces, and subdivided into 17 amts, bailiwicks, or counties. The population amounts to 1,200,000.

Districts.

Sondenfields, (the southern ranges of hills) comprising the provinces of Aggerhuus or Christiania, and Christiansand......

Nordenfields, (the northern ranges of)

Cities and Towns.

Christiania, Christiansand, Frederickshall, Stavanger, Kongsberg.

hills), including the provinces of Ber- Bergen, Drontheim, Christiansund gen and Drontheim.........

Norrland, (the north land) consisting of) the bailiwick of that name, and Finmark, or Norwegian Lapland

Roraas.

Alstahong, Tromsoe, Altengaard,
Hammerfest, Wardoehuys.

Christiania, the capital, in the south-east, at the head of the Christiania fiord, a bay extending sixty miles inland, is the seat of a university founded in 1811, and contains a small but highly intelligent population of 23,000.-The country possesses valuable mines, forests, and fisheries, the main sources of subsistence to the people, a large amount of fish and timber being annually forwarded to different European markets, in exchange for agricultural and manufacturing produce. The minerals include gold, silver, iron, copper, cobalt, graphite, alum, and others. The mines at Kongsberg, in a narrow wild valley, formerly afforded magnificent specimens of native silver, but are now for the most part under water. One mass, in the royal collection at Copenhagen, among a splendid series from this locality, weighs upwards of 5 cwt.-The executive government of Norway is vested in the king of Sweden, and administered by a viceroy and council of state; but all legislative power

resides entirely in the Storthing (great court), a national representative assembly, which ordinarily meets every third year.

Bergen, on a promontory of the west coast, inclosed by high mountains, is the commercial capital of Norway, exporting annually from 25 to 30 millions of pounds of dried fish from the fishery of the Loffoden Isles.-Population, 22,500. Trondheim, or Drontheim, further north on the coast, wholly built of wood, was anciently the residence of the Norwegian kings. Frederickshall, on the Christiania fiord, close to the Swedish frontier, is celebrated as the place where Charles XII. of Sweden was killed in 1718, while besieging its fortress. Alstahong, capital of Norrland, a mere village on a small island, is the seat of the most northerly bishop's see in Europe, lat. 67° 30'. Christiansand and Stavanger, ports on the south and south-west coasts, have considerable commerce. Tromsoe, the chief place in Finmark, with only 700 inhabitants, has a newspaper, probably the most northerly in the world.

Hammerfest, in Finmark, on an island, the most northerly town of Europe, in lat. 70° 40', has about 100 inhabitants. The dwarf birch grows here in sheltered hollows, attaining to about the human height.

The peninsula of Lister, near the south extremity of Norway, is one of the principal lobster fisheries for the London market.

The most elevated of the field-stuer, or places of refuge from snow-storms, is 4,563 feet above the sea, on the road from Christiania to Trondheim.

285. Sweden consists likewise of three principal districts, divided into 24 lans, or governments, containing a population of 3,100,000.

Stockholm, the capital, in lat. 59° 20′ N., and long. 18° E., on the strait which connects Lake Mælar with the Baltic, and some adjacent islands, contains about 80,000 inhabitants. The country, while far more agricultural than Norway, is to an immense extent a forest region, remarkably rich in metals. The mines of Dannemora yield iron renowned for its superior quality, used on that account for cast steel in the manufactories of Sheffield; and those of Fahlun are celebrated for their supply of copper, furnishing also small quantities of gold, silver, and lead. The Swedish legislative assembly, called the Diet, consists of four chambers, composed of representatives of the nobles, clergy, burghers, and peasants, ordinarily meeting once every five years. Reigning sovereign, Oscar I.; ascended the throne, 1844.

Gottenburg, on a fiord of the Cattegat which receives the river Gotha, is a flourishing commercial port, and the second city of the kingdom, the residence of a considerable number of British merchants. It exports largely iron and timber.-Population, 29,000.

Upsal, an ancient inland city north by west of Stockholm, long the residence

of the Swedish kings, is the seat of a celebrated university, founded in 1478, associated with the names of the great naturalists, Bergman, Linnæus, Scheele, and Berzelius. Its library contains the famous Codex Argenteus, so called from its silver letters, a manuscript Gothic version of the Scriptures, executed by Ulphilas, bishop of the Goths, in the fourth century.-Carlscrona, on the southeast coast, strongly fortified, is the Portsmouth of Sweden, the principal station of the navy.-Calmar, a port north of Carlscrona, derives celebrity from the treaty of 1397, by which Queen Margaret united Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. -Wisbey, the capital of the island of Gottland, one of the greatest commercial cities in Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries, is now a poor town of 4,000 inhabitants, with deserted and decayed buildings proclaiming its former importance.

286. Lutheranism is the established form of religion in Norway and Sweden; but the mass of the people, especially in the latter country, are far estranged from the spirit and practice of vital godliness. The constant use of ardent spirits, to which the inhabitants of cold climates are peculiarly prone, renders drunkenness a very common vice, prevalent among those whose education ought to place them above this temptation. The consequences of this habit appear in a frightful amount of moral delinquency, and in the great number of offenders annually convicted of some criminal offence. In fact Sweden may, without injustice, be deemed the most demoralized nation of Protestant Europe. Formalism characterizes the church, largely connected with virulent hostility to the disciples of pietism, or evangelical religion, who constitute, alas! in the most literal sense of the phrase, a little flock," while efforts from without to promote the spiritual benefit of the people are restrained by intolerant laws. Every Swede is bound by pains and penalties to remain a member of the national church, and is liable to a fine for even hearing the minister of another communion. Foreigners have the free exercise of their worship, but a Wesleyan chaplain was compelled to close his chapel and leave Stockholm in 1842, for preaching in the native language. In the northern provinces inhabited by the Finns and Lapps, a great reformation appears to be in process. Occupying the more sterile inland parts within the polar circle, the mountains in summer, and the levels in winter, distributed in solitary families, or in small groups, sustained by the rein-deer, these people were pagans half a century ago, and have been proverbial for sottish habits. But a most decided change marks their present character, which it is cheering to record. An official report, forwarded by the crown officer to the government, dated Upper Tornea, March 7th, 1849, states: "A

remarkable alteration has taken place in the northern Laplands. An especial religious spirit prevails among the people there generally. They have turned from all open vices, and manifest an honourable and respectable walk. The good effect of this change of mind appears in several respects. General temperance now prevails. It has also led to a great reduction of law processes and criminal charges. In the event of the civil processes being diminished in future in the same ratio, a considerable loss will inevitably be entailed on the judges, whose salaries will be reduced by the lack of fees for documents issued. Every one who has known the Lappish peasantry, and marked their unconquerable desire after brandy, and other strong drinks, their wild and foolish behaviour at the markets, and other places of gathering, must be filled with the greatest astonishment at the general alteration which has taken place among them, when they are met with, all sober, and as quiet and peaceful as if they were gathered in the churchyard for the purpose of entering the sanctuary. This change of mind has chiefly been brought about by the zealous exertions of rector Læstadius, who, partly by conversation, partly by plain sermons and religious addresses, suited to the minds of the Laplanders, has aroused the consciences of the people, and planted within them religious principles, giving them an abhorrence of everything vicious."

The Swedes and Norwegians are of the same lineage as the Danes. The Finns and Lapps are a totally distinct race, belonging not to the Caucasian, but to the Mongolian division of mankind.

The wolf, bear, lemming, reindeer, elk, and beaver, are common to the northern or the unfrequented regions of Scandinavia.

The only foreign possession of Sweden is the island of St. Bartholomew, in the West Indies.

RUSSIA IN EUROPE,

287. European Russia consists of the vast tract inclosed by the Arctic Ocean on the north: Norwegian and Swedish Lapland, the Baltic and its branches, with the Prussian and Austrian dominions on the west; the Danube, Black Sea, Caucasus, and Caspian, on the the south; and Asia on the east. On the side of Asia, the frontier is determined chiefly by the river Kara, the range of the Urals, and the river Ural. But at various points it has no prominent natural indication, nor has an artificial one been supplied;