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_ THROUGH FINLAND. 375
their propofal.. The great difficulty of paffing thofe cataraéts with
a boat, containing more than two perfons, had rendered it cute
tomary to perform this part of the journey by land. The woods
being then impaffable, 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
{trong 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 ftep of finking in the mire. Thefe obftacles
_ 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 paflenger 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 lat 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
obferyations are found in ‘ A report on a journey to Lapland,
“undertaken at the expence of the royal academy of f{ciences at
* See Maupertuis’s Works, vol. iv. page 332.
s¢ Stockholm,
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