Lachesis Lapponica; Or, A Tour in Lapland, Volume 1Linné, Carl von
History
Lachesis Lapponica; Or, A Tour in Lapland, Volume 1
Linné, Carl von
Lapland -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Lapland
[15] This cavern has been visited by other naturalists since the
time of Linnæus, among whom was Dr. Olaf Swartz, the present Bergian
Professor of Botany at Stockholm, well known by his various
excellent publications, who gathered here the same _Byssus_
(_cryptarum_) which Linnæus found in the other cavern at
Brunæsberget. Both their original specimens are now in my
possession.
Having taken leave of this mountain, I had scarcely continued my journey
a quarter of a mile before I found a great part of the country covered
with snow, in patches some inches deep. The pretty spring flowers had
gradually disappeared. The buds of the birch, which so greatly
contribute to the beauty of the forests, were not yet put forth. I saw
nothing but wintry plants, the heath and the whortle-berry, peeping
through the snow. The high mountains which surround this tract, and
screen it from the genial southern and western breezes, added to the
thick forests which will hardly allow the first mild showers of spring
to reach the ground, may account for the long duration of the snow.
This part of the country is very mountainous, and is watered by many
small rills, originating on the sides of the mountains from the copious
rains falling upon them, and running from thence, by various channels,
to swell the streams of Helsingland and Medelpad.
The cornfields afford a crop two years successively, and lie fallow the
third. Rye is seldom or never sown here, being too slow in coming to
perfection, so that the land, which must next receive the Barley, would
be too much exhausted. The ploughs are made with two transverse beams on
one side, that the sods may be turned the first time the land is
ploughed, as will presently be more particularly explained.
_May 21._
After going to church at Natra, I remarked some cornfields, which the
curate of that place had caused to be cultivated in a manner that
appeared extraordinary to me. After the field has lain fallow three or
four years, it is sown with one part rye and two parts barley, mixed
together. The seed is committed to the ground in spring, as soon as the
earth is capable of tillage. The barley grows rank, ripens its ears, and
is reaped. The rye in the mean while goes into leaf, but shoots up no
stem, as the barley smothers it and retards its growth. After the latter
is reaped, the rye advances in growth, and ripens the year following,
without any further cultivation, the crop being very abundant. The corn
so produced is called Kappsäd.
Today I met with no flowers, except the Wood Sorrel (_Oxalis
Acetosella_), which is here the _primula_, or first flower of the
spring. The _Convallaria bifolia_ and Strawberry-leaved Bramble (_Rubus
arcticus_) were plentifully in leaf.
The rocks are generally of a whitish hue, the uppermost side indeed
being rather darker from the injuries of the air, and the minute mosses
that clothe it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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