Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - I. Physical Geography - 1. Configuration and Water-system. By Docent Gunnar Andersson, Ph. D., Stockholm - A) The Highlands and Alpine District of Upper Sweden - c) The Marine-Deposit Belt - B) The Lowlands in Central Sweden
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16
i. physical geography of sweden.
The present coast-line in Norrland is of a temporary character, inasmuch as
the upheaval of the land now going on (in the Quarken at the rate of about one
meter in the century, at Stockholm of 47 centim.) causes the boundary to be
constantly advancing, inasmuch as fresh tracts of sea-bottom of exactly similar
nature to that just described are continually making their appearance. The
valley-courses are continued under the present surface of the sea; the thousand islets
and islands now forming the Skärgård, which gives the Scandinavian coasts a
character of their own, are but the first signs of hills and summits of the future;
the sand and clay bottoms of the bays, which slope very gradually out to sea,
are the fields, which, when raised above the level of the sea, will be taken
possession of by the agriculturist. In the tracts abandoned by the sea, and not
immediately claimed for cultivation, coniferous-foreats make their appearance,
almost always preceded on the Norrland coast by a belt of speckled alder (Alnus
incana), usually some tens of meters in breadth.
B) The Lowlands in Central Sweden. The marine-deposit
district, with its plains and with its clay soil, which lends itself so well
to cultivation, extends from the coast-districts of Norrland over the
whole of the lowlands in Central Sweden; the dissimilarity of the two
regions is, nevertheless, very great. If the elevation-curves for 100
and 200 meters be traced on the map on p. 8, and if the sketchmap
p. 15 be compared therewith, it will be noticed that the immediate
continuation of the Norrland coast-tract runs through the mining districts
of Dalarne and Vermland, where deep valleys intervene between the
more elevated moraine-covered regions of primary röck. Hence wooded
ranges of heights constitute the greater part of the country, as is
the case in Norrland, while in the lowlands proper the greater part of
the country consists of a more uniformly level ground, as a result of the
marine deposits. Out of this there rise in different parts more or less
numerous heights, of varying elevation but seldom exceeding from 50 to
100 meters above the sea. Exceptions worthy of note are the Silurian
mountains in Vestergötland, of which Kinnekulle is 301 m., Halleberg
148 m., Hunneberg 142 m., Billingen 298 m., and Omberg, that remnant
of primitive röck still preserved on the east side of Lake Vettern, 263
m. in height. Where the summits of primitive röck have been much
exposed to the regular action of waves and winds, they have usually
lost their initial soil formations, and form but an indifferent habitat
for forests; spruces and pines, more or less intermingled with birches
and aspens, carry on a struggle for existence, largely subject to
interference by man. This ground is but ill adapted for tillage.
As pointed out above, it is the depression of the basal röck along
certain lines that has given rise to the lowlands of Central Sweden;
subsequently came the fertilizing and levelling influence of the marine
deposits that spread their covering over them. These formations afford
a particularly fertile and easily cultivated soil, more especially where a
plentiful admixture of lime is present, as in Uppland, Nerike,
Östergötland, and Vestergötland; in former times the nobler species offoliage
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