chains of hills run nearly parallel from east to west through this department, and divide it into three zones of almost equal extent, conveying the waters in three different directions. North of the Arrez, or more northern of the two chains, the waters of the Douron, Jarleuc, Penzé, and Flèche flow northward to the sea. South of the Noires range, the Odet, Aven, Ioste, and Elle flow southward; while the region inclosed by the two chains having a declination westward, the waters of the Aulne and the Elorn flow into the Brest roads. The rivers are all small, and none of the hills attain a height of 900 feet. The coasts are generally steep and rocky, and indented with numerous bays and inlets, affording some excellent harbours, the principal being those of Brest, La Forest, Morlaix, Landernau, Quimper, and Douarnenez. The only navigable rivers are the Aulne, Elorn, and Odet. Off the coast lie a number of islands and rocky islets, the principal of which are Ushant and Bas. The climate is temperate, but rather humid; the prevailing winds are the W., S.W., and N.W. More than a third of the soil is under cultivation, and about an equal proportion is heath or waste land, rather the larger proportion of the remainder being pasturage, and the rest woods and forests. Though so small a portion of the land is under cultivation, the produce of corn is more than sufficient for the population, and might be greatly increased if the primitive agricultural implements and methods still in use were superseded by the introduction of modern improvements. The chief crops are oats, rye, wheat, and barley; flax, hemp, and pulse are also produced. The farm and dairy produce, though plentiful in quantity, is indifferent in quality; but great attention is paid to the breeding and feeding of cattle. In the department there are a large number of orchards and gardens, and vegetables are largely grown for exportation. The fisheries of the coast, particularly the pilchard fishery, employ a great many hands, and render this department an excellent nursery of seamen for the French navy. Finistère is rich in minerals: iron, coal, lead, bismuth, and zinc mines are worked; and there are quarries of granite, slate, marble, and porphyry. The lead mines of Poullaouen and Huelgoat, which yielded a considerable quantity of silver, have not been worked since 1869. The manufactures are linens, woollens, sailcloth, ropes, paper, leather, earthenware, soda, soap, candles, sugar, &c. Shipbuilding is carried on at Brest and other seaports. Finistère is divided into the arrondissements of Quimperlé, Brest, Châteaulin, Morlaix, and Quimper, the town of Quimper being the capital of the department. The population of Finistère in 1872 was 642,963, and in 1876 it was 666,106.
FINLAND (Finnish Suomi, or Suomenmaa, the Swampy Region, of which Finland—Fen Land—is said to be a Swedish translation), a grand-duchy forming an administrative division or government of Russia, lies between 59° 48′ and 70° 6′ N. lat., and 20° 29′ and 32° 47′ E. long. It is bounded on the N. by Norway, on the E. by the governments of Archangel and Olonetz, on the S. by the Gulf of Finland, and on the W. by the Gulf of Bothnia. Its greatest length is 717 miles, greatest breadth 378 miles, the average breadth being about 185 miles; the area is 144,221 square miles. The surface is a labyrinthine mixture of land and water; and the sea-coast, especially in the south and south-west, presents the same succession of fiords and rocky headlands that characterizes the coasts of Norway and Sweden. The fiords of Finland, however, seldom exceed a few miles in extent. The coast is studded with innumerable small islands and rocks called skår; some of these islands, as those of Sveaborg, have been converted into fortresses of great strength. The intricate archipelago of islets and granite and limestone rocks in the Bothnian gulf renders the navigation extremely dangerous. The lakes occupy about 12 per cent. of the area, the marshes 20 per cent., so that Finland is more abundantly supplied with water than any other country in the world. The land appears to have been formerly a sea-bed, which was gradually elevated and is still rising at the rate of about 3.4 feet on the Gulf of Bothnia, and 1.9 feet on the Gulf of Finland in a hundred years. The surface consists of primitive rocks, as gneiss, porphyritic and synetic granite, diorite, gabbro, and hyperesthene, and of formations allied to the older metamorphic and the Cambrian. Neither fossils nor coal have been found. Geologists suppose that the land, a low table-land, continuous along its north-western and southern borders with two low and flat border-ridges, was long ago covered with an immense ice-sheet, which, creeping from Scandinavia, crossed the Gulf of Bothnia, traversed southern Finland in a direction south by east, crossed the Gulf of Finland, and crept further on in the Baltic provinces. The numberless striæ, the positions and directions of which exclude any suspicion of their having been traced by floating ice, the striation on the islands of the shallow gulfs, together with that of the Onega basin, the Neva valley, and the Baltic provinces, the uninterrupted sheet of till, i.e., of a true unstratified and unwashed morainic deposit covering Finland, the numberless moraines parallel to the glacial striæ, and hundreds of other evidences seem to settle the existence of such an ice-sheet beyond doubt. As to traces of marine formations, there are none above a level of about 100 or 120 feet; only lacustrine deposits cover the till above this level.
The greater portion of the interior is, as has been said,
a vast table-land, averaging in height from 350 to 400
feet, and interspersed willth hills of no great elevation.
Heights of considerable elevation are found only in the
most northerly part, where the highest summit, Haldefjåll
(Lappish Haldischok), rises to 4124 feet in the north-west
on the Norwegian border. Other single mountains reach
from 2000 to 3000 feet, and the higher ridges 1000 feet.
The land falls towards the south. The principal central
ridge Maanselkå, (i.e., land-ridge), about 1300 feet high,
the watershed between the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of
Bothnia, forms the boundary between Russia and Finland
from 68° to 64° N. lat., running thence under the name of
Suomen-selkå (i.e., Finland-ridge) towards the south-west as
far as the Gulf of Bothnia, 62° N. lat. Several spurs run
off from this ridge towards the south, forming watersheds,
but rising little above the general level of the table-land.
The largest plain lies on the narrow middle part of the
Gulf of Bothnia.
By the above-mentioned ridges Finland is divided into five great basins. In the south-eastern basin, besides Lake Ladoga on the border, lies Lake Saima, along with 120 larger and several thousand smaller lakes, discharging by the river Wuoksen into Lake Ladoga; in the middle or southern basin is Lake Påijåne, discharging by the river Kymmene into the Gulf of Finland; in the south-west basin the waters unite near the town of Tammerfors in tha little lake Pyhåjårvi, and discharge by the river Kumo into the Bothnian Gulf; in the north-west is the Ulea basin, with an outflow by the rivers Uleå, Kemi, and Torneå into the same gulf; the north basin contains Lake Enare (nearly 1000 square miles), covered with ice for ten months in the year, and sending its waters into the Arctic Ocean. The rivers are full of rapids, and rarely navigable, but serve for floating down large quantities of timber from the extensive woods of the interior, and also furnish motive power for many mills. The lakes are united by canals.
The climate of Finland is severe, but generally healthy. The mean yearly temperature in the north is 27.5° Fahr.; at Helsingfors, 38.7°. The average annual rainfall is 20 inches.
