The area of Finnish speech forms a compact mass extending south of the 69th parallel to the Baltic shores. Its complete access to the sea is barred in part by two coastal strips in the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland in both of which Swedish predominates in varying percentages.[84] The group of the Aland Islands, although included in the Czar’s dominions, is also peopled by Swedes all the way to the southwestern point of Finland.[85] This broken fringe of Swedish is conceded to be a relic of the early occupation of Finland by Swedes.[86] One of its strips, the Bothnian, is remarkably pure in composition. The band extending on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, however, contains enclaves of the Finnish element. This is ascribed to an artificial process of “fennification” resulting from the introduction of cheap labor in the industrial regions of southern Finland. Slower economic development of the provinces of the western coast, on the other hand, tends to maintain undisturbed segregation of the population. The ties uniting Finland with Sweden are moral and cultural. Swedish missionaries of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the agents through whom Christianity was introduced into Finland. Together with religion many Swedish customs and laws superseded the primitive social organization of the Finns. The relation established was virtually that of an intellectual minority gaining the upper hand over an ignorant majority. A change in the situation came about in the middle of the fourteenth century when Finland became an integral part of the Swedish kingdom and all civil and political distinctions between the two elements of its populations were abolished. [Illustration: FIG. 36--View of the Lake country near Kuopi, showing the Kallavesi Sea with low islands and level shores. This is a characteristic Finnish landscape.] [Illustration: FIG. 37--Above the Koivukoski Falls at Kajana. Finnish waterways are the usual lanes of traffic between the inland seas of that country.] Finland’s union with the west failed, however, to bring about Swedish predominance in the land. The Finns preserved their language and tended in fact to assimilate their conquerors. The physical isolation of their country from Sweden contributed largely to foster this incipient stage of Finnish nationality. The Gulf of Bothnia and the frozen solitudes of Lapland proved an effective barrier to the complete fusion of Swedes and Finns. Eastward, however, no natural obstacles intervened between Finland and Russia. The prolonged struggle between the latter country and Sweden hence inevitably led to the Russian conquest of Finland.