e. They are allowed that nourishment more than twice as long
as in other places. I have a notion that Adam and Eve were giants, and
that mankind from one generation to another, owing to poverty and other
causes, have diminished in size. Hence, perhaps, the diminutive stature
of the Laplanders.

The old tradition that the inhabitants of Helsingland never have the
ague is untrue, since I heard of many cases.

Between the post-house of Iggsund and Hudwiksvall a violet-coloured clay
is found in abundance, forming a regular stratum. I observed it likewise
in a hill, the strata of which consisted of two or three fingers'
breadths of common vegetable mould, then from four to six inches of
barren sand, next about a span of the violet clay, and lastly, barren
sand. The clay contained small and delicately smooth white bivalve
shells, quite entire, as well as some larger brown ones, of which great
quantities are to be found near the waterside. I am therefore convinced
that all these valleys and marshes have formerly been under water, and
that the highest hills only then rose above it. At this spot grows the
_Anemone hepatica_ with a purple flower; a variety so very rare in other
places that I should almost be of the opinion of the gardeners, who
believe the colours of particular earths may be communicated to flowers.

On May 21 I found at Natra some fields cultivated in an extraordinary
manner. After the field had lain fallow three or four years, it is sown
with one part rye and two parts barley, mixed together. The barley
ripens, and is reaped. The rye, meantime, goes into leaf, but shoots up
no stem, since it is smothered by the barley. After the barley has been
reaped, however, the rye grows and ripens the following year, producing
an abundant crop.

_II.--Lapland Customs_

The Laplanders of Lycksele prepare a kind of curd or cheese from the
milk of the reindeer and the leaves of sorrel. They boil these leaves
in a copper vessel, adding one-third part water, stirring it continually
with a ladle that it may not burn, and adding fresh leaves from time to
time till the whole acquires the consistence of a syrup. This takes six
or seven hours, after which it is set by to cool, and is then mixed with
the milk, and preserved for use from autumn till the ensuing summer in
wooden vessels, or in the first stomach of the reindeer. It is stored
either in the caves of the mountains or in holes dug in the ground, lest
it should be att