Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/323

 LAPLAND 305 not constitute a geographical unity. The Scandinavian portion presents the usual characteristics of the mountain plateau of that peninsula, on one side the bold headlands, fjords, deep-grooved valleys, and glaciers of Norway, on the other the long mountain lakes and lake-fed rivers of Sweden. On the Swedish side the Lapp borders only come down to within from 30 to 40 miles of the coast, where the rivers bogin to lose the character of mountain streams. With the exception of Torne Lappmark, which is really part of Scandinavia, Finnish and Russian Lapland may be gene rally described as comparatively low country, broken by detached lulls and ridges, one of which, the Umbdek Duncler, attains an elevation of 2500 feet. Rivers and lakes abound. In the north of the Finnish region lies the great Enure or Inara (formerly Upper Imandra) Lake, with an area of 1147 square miles; and the south is traversed by the countless head-waters of the Kemi, which falls into the Gulf of Bothnia to the east of the Swedish frontier. The largest of the rivers of Russian Lapland or, as it is often called, the Kola peninsula is the Tulom, which falls into the Arctic Ocean ; and others of importance are the Pasvig, the Ponoi, and the Varsuga. Lake Imandra, or Inandra (in Lappish Aver), is about Go miles long by 8 or 9 broad ; Lake Nuoljaure is 35 miles by 7 ; andGuolle- jinre, Umbozero, Kontojarvi, and Paiijarvi are all of con siderable extent. An opinion was long prevalent that there was a natural boundary of the most striking kind between the Arctic coast of Norwegian and that of Russian Lapland, that to the east of Jacob s river the harbours DI- fjords were ice-bound for six months of the year, while the influence of the Gulf Stream never allowed those to the west to be frozen. This, however, is not the case. The principal harbours on the Murman coast eastward to the mo ith of the White Sea remain open like those of Norway. Though Lapland contains vast stretches of desolate tundra and dreary swamp, the country as a whole has a certain quiet beauty, and in the wilder districts the scenery is wonderfully various in colour and form. &quot; It is hardly possible,&quot; says Lieutenant Temple in Proc. Roy. Geoy. Soc., 1880, &quot;to conceive a greater contrast to the ice-bound regions which lie between the same parallels in the western hemisphere.&quot; And, though it gives little scope for hus bandry, Lapland is richly furnished with much that is ser viceable to man. Not to mention the iron and copper mines, it still possesses great store of timber, pine and spruce and birch ; though fruit trees yield no fruit, there is abundance of edible berries ; the rivers and lakes abound with salmon, trout, perch, and pike ; myriads of water-fowl, ptarmigan, partridges, and capercailzie breed within its borders ; and the cod, herring, holibut, and Greenland sharks of its seas give occupation to thousands of fishermen. The chief characteristic of Lapland is its Arctic climate and the distribution of daylight and darkness. In the northern parts the longest day and the longest night last for three months each, and through the greater part of the country the sun does not set at midsummer or rise at midwinter. The following calendar of the climate after Lrcstadius relates more particularly to the northern districts of Swedish Lapland, but is more or less applicable to a large part of the country : January : cold and clear ; no day-light ; about 4 o clock the &quot;rose of dawn &quot;; mean temperature, 50 Fahr. February : cold ; snow and wind ; day-light from C-7 A.M. to 5-6 T.M ; mean temperature, - 1 4. M nrch : heat of the sun begins to modify the cold ; steady snow fall ; swans begin to appear; mean temperature, 11 5. April : weather variable ; snow and wind ; birds of passage, crows, and snow sparrows appear ; snows melt from the branches ; mean tem perature, 26 6. May : the finest month in the year ; spring flowers in blossom ; bird life abundant ; sowing season ; temperature often reaches 68 during the day ; seed is often &quot;brairded&quot; eight days after it is sown ; mean temperature, 36 5. June : ice breaks up on lakes and rivers ; woods rush into leaf ; about the 20th continual day ; mean temperature, 49 to 50. July : quite warm ; mountain floods ; grain shoots into ear ; fishing and hunting ; mos quitoes ; cloudberries ripe; mean temperature, 59. August: much rain ; harvest ; by the 10th strong frosts at night ; mean temperature, 56. September : short days ; rain, wind, sleet ; raspberries, strawberries, bilberries, &c., ripe ; fall of the leaf ; mean temperature, 41. October: &quot;golden pudding time&quot;; slaughter of reindeer and laying up of meat store for winter ; mean tem perature, 27 50. November : full winter ; lakes frozen over ; fish ing still prosecuted with ice-nets ; mean temperature, 12 24. December : much like January ; hunting of bears, wolves, &c. : mean temperature, 1. The population of Lapland has been considerably re cruited in modern times by immigrants from the south ; but the country is still very sparsely peopled, and the Lapps still predominate. There are no towns, and the villages are not only few and insignificant, but often hardly less nomadic than the people, being shifted according to exigencies of fodder or fuel. Harnmerfcst, the &quot;most northern town of the European continent,&quot; has only 2100 inhabitants, and Kola (formerly Malmis), the principal settlement in Russian Lapland, does not now exceed 500. The Lapps. The Lapps (Swed., Lappar; Russian, Lo- pari ; Norw., Finner) call their country Saline or Same, and themselves Samelats names almost identical with those employed by the Finns for their country and race, and probably connected with a root signifying &quot; dark &quot; (see Donner, Very. WiJrt. &amp;lt;hr Finn.-Uyr. Sprachen^els., 1876). Lapp is almost certainly a nickname imposed by foreigners, although some of the Lapps apply it contemptuously to those of their countrymen whom they think to be less civilized than themselves. 1 In Sweden and Finland the Lapps are usually divided into fisher, mountain, and forest Lapps, In Sweden the first class includes many impoverished mountain Lapps. As described by La3stadius (1827-32), their condition was a very miserable one ; but since his time matters have much improved. The principal colony has its sum mer quarters on the Stuor-Lule Lake, possesses good boats and nets, and, besides catching and drying fish, makes money by the shooting of wild fowl and the gathering of eggs. When he has acquired a little means it is not unusual for the fisher to settle down and reclaim a bit of land. The mountain and forest Lapps are the true representatives of the race. In the wandering life of the mountain Lapp his autumn residence, on the borders of the forest district, may be considered as the central point ; it is there that he erects his njalla, a small wooden store house raised high above the ground by one or more piles. At the beginning of November, a little sooner or later, he begins to wander south or east into the forest land, and in the course of the winter he may visit, not only such places as Jokkmokk and Arjepluog, but even Gefle, Upsala, or Stockholm. About the beginning of May he is back at his njalla, but as soon as the weather grows warm he pushes up to the mountains, and there throughout the summer pastures his herds and prepares his store of cheese. By autumn or October he is busy at his njalla killing the surplus reindeer bulls and curing meat for the winter. From the mountain Lapp the forest (or, as he used to be called, the spruce-fir) Lapp is mainly distinguished by the narrower limits within which he pursues his nomadic life. He never wanders outside of a certain district, in which he possesses hereditary rights, and maintains a series of camp ing grounds which he visits in regular rotation. In Maj or April he lets his reindeer loose, to wander as they please : but immediately after midsummer, when the mosquitoes become troublesome, he goes to collect them. Catching a single deer and &quot; belling &quot; it, he drives it through the wood : the other deer, whose instinct leads them to gather into herds for mutual protection against the mosquitoes, are 1 The most probable etymology is the Finnish lappu, and in this case the meaning would be the &quot;land s-end folk.&quot; XIV. - 39