maanantai 12. maaliskuuta 2012

Mitä Suomesta kirjoitettiin 1783 ja 1796?


The modern part of an Universial History, from the Earliest Accounts to the Present Time. Compiled from original authors. By the Authors of the Ancient Part. Vol XXXVII. London 1783 kertoi ylläolevan pätkän verran Suomesta ja Pomeraniasta. Ruotsi oli menettänyt Viipurin ja "Elsinvas"in satamat ja sillä oli jäljellä Suomessa enää Turku ja joitakin pieniä satamapaikkoja. Näistä tehtiin merkittävää kauppaa Englantiin ja Hollantiin, erityisesti kestävällä kuusipuulla. Sisämaa on kuulu hyvistä hevosistaan.

Hieman asiantuntevammalta kuullosta puolestaan pätkä luonnontieteellisestä kirjasta Bernardin de Saint-Pierre & Henry Hunter: Studies of nature (1796) . Haminahan on rakennettu tunkion päälle? Lisäys 7:44: Missähän kunnossa bloginpitäjä on tekstiä kirjoittanut? Allahan puhutaan tunkiosta Haminan lähellä eikä Haminasta tunkion päällä.
I have seen, in Finland, near Wiburg, beyond the fixty-first degree of Latitude, cherry-trees entirely exposed to the weather, though these trees are natives of the forty-second degree ; that is, of the kingdom of Pontus, from whence Lucullus transplanted them to Rome, after the defeat of Mithridates. The peasantry of that Province cultivate tobacco with success, which is a much more southerly plant, being originally a native of Brasil. It is, I admit, an annual plant, and that it does not acquire, in it's northern situation, a very high degree of perfume ; for they are under the necessity of exposing it to the heat of their stoves, in order to bring it to a state of perfect maturity. But the rocks with which Finland is covered over, would undoubtedly present, to attentive eyes, reverberating situations, which might bring it to a sufficient degree of maturity, without the aid of artificial heat.

I myself found, not far from the city of Fredericksham, upon a dunghill, under the shelter of a rock, a very lofty tuft of oats, the produce of a single seed, consisting of thirty-seven stalks, loaded with as many ears completely ripe, without reckoning a multitude of other small sucklers. I gathered it, with an intention of having it presented to her Imperial Majesty, Catharine II. by my General M. Dubfosquet, under whose orders, and in whose company I was then visiting the fortified places of that province ...

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