Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - I. Introductory Lecture.—The Country and its Inhabitants in the Heathen Period up to 1000 A.D. - § 2. Natural Features of the Country
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birches, then pines, or, as we call them, Scotch firs, then
firs, then oaks, then beeches, each following the other
further north as the ice has receded. So that the forests
give a sort of picture in nature of what has gone on in
human nature, Cwens and Finns, or Lapps, receding
before Swedes and Goths—as the birch has before the pine,
and the oak before the beech.
The country is rocky, with much granite, and with much
chalk in Skåne, but the hills in the more fertile and
populous districts rise to no great height, and the lakes have
flat or gently sloping sides like the tamer part of the
English lakes, rather than crags or overshadowing
mountains. Even the higher mountains in the northern
provinces which, on the coast of Norway, rise abruptly from
the sea, slope gently down on the Swedish side. On the
other hand the coast of Norway has the advantage of the
Gulf Stream, or some similar current, and is much warmer
than the east coast of Sweden.[1] In fact, the Gulf of
Bothnia is sometimes frozen over so completely as to
enable people to walk and sledge from one side to the other.
This is indeed always a dangerous procedure, and only
possible when the winter is unusually cold. Yet it can be
cold even on the west coast, and the Great Belt and the
Little Belt were once so strongly frozen as to enable the
whole Swedish Army to cross them in 1658—a famous
occasion which led to the transference of the southern provinces
from Denmark to Sweden.[2]
As regards inland travelling, the comparative flatness of
the country and the absence of precipitous mountains make
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