The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

112 SCANDINAVIA.the "chimrera," a grotesque and voracious animal known to the Norwegians as" the sea-king." In these deep fishing grounds Sar the elder recorded in a fewyears 427 new species, apart from those discovered at depths of from 200 to 270fathoms in the Lofoten waters. But within the last two hundred years the whalehas entirely disappeared from the shores of Finmark.The inhabitants of the south-west coast of Sweden derive their sustenancelargely from the Kattegat and Skager Rak fisheries, where hundreds of smackspursue the herring, cod, and whiting. After suddenly disappearing from theGoteborg coast about the beginning of this century, the herring has again returned,at first in small numbers, but in the winters of 1878 and 1879 in vast quantities.On the Norwegian side, also, between the Naze and Cape Stadt, their movementshave been very erratic. But most of the inhabitants of this coast have given upfishing, and turned their attention to the cultivation of the land, formerly almostentirely neglected.In the northern waters the cod banks on either side of the Lofotens are periodicallydeserted, and all these vicissitudes have recently enlisted the telegraph in theservice of the fishermen along the coast, who now receive immediate informationof the appearance of shoals, wherever they happen to arrive.The very lives of the coast populations in Finmark may be said to depend onWhen these are productive mortality diminishes, communitiesthe cod fisheries.flourish, comfort is everywhere diffused. When the herrings swarm in theLapland fiords towards the end of summer, despair overspreads the land, for a longexperience has taught the people that the herring and the cod do not visit thesame waters in the same year successively. But when the former are rare theports are alive with preparations for the coming season, which is sure to be profitable.On these occasions the curing of the fish is not confined to the regularfishing populations alone, whether Norwegians, Finns, Lapps, or Russians.To theseaboard are then attracted long caravans of men, women, children, dogs, and reindeerfrom the interior. The Lapps of the forest, drawn down to the sea, departand return with the birds of passage.Earliest Inhabitants.The written records of Scandinavia date no farther back than some twentygenerations.The earliest chronicles, dating from the end of the eleventh century,have almost entirely perished. Of this epoch, and of the earlier period to thebeginning of the ninth century, nothing survives except the faint traditionsrecorded by the sagas.Of the hazy past, penetrating beyond that epoch into thenight of time, the only witnesses are the remains left by primitive man on or belowthe surface of the land.In itsarchaeological remains Southern Sweden greatly resembles the Danishislands, and seems to have been occupied by men of kindred race and like customs.But farther north we enter another domain.Northern Sweden and Norway haveno kitchen middens of the stone ages, with the exception of one at Stenkjaer, nearthe Trondhjem-fiord, and even this contains objects belonging exclusively to the