In order to observe how fast the water rose in the river, which was increasing daily, I had fixed a perpendicular stick the preceding evening at eight o'clock close to the margin of the stream. This morning at five it had gained a foot in depth and two feet in breadth. Near the bank, which is continually undermining in some part or other by the current, stones are found incrusted with sand, coagulated as it were about them by means of iron. Some of them seem as if they had been blown to pieces with gunpowder.
I was told that the peasants had in the winter preceding foretold an unusual rise of the river, and a great flood, in the course of this summer, which when it happens is a considerable detriment to those whose pasture grounds are overflowed by it. Their mode of judging is by the swelling of the stream in winter, to which they observe that in the ensuing summer always to bear a proportion.
The colonists settled in Lapmark sow a great deal of turnip seed, which frequently succeeds very well and produces a plentiful crop. The native Laplanders are so fond of this root, that they will often give a cheese in exchange for a turnip; than which nothing can be more foolish.
At Gräno I met with perfectly white flowers of the Dog's Violet (_Viola canina_): also _Bistorta alpina sobolifera_, or more properly perhaps _vivipara_ (_Polygonum viviparum_), as the bulbs had grown out into small leaves.
Rain fell in the night, accompanied with thunder and lightning.
Early in the morning I left Gräno, and in passing through the forest observed on the Juniper magnificent specimens of that gelatinous substance, about which and its heroic virtues in curing the jaundice so much has been said[37]. I picked up a curious insect which I then named _Cantharis niger maculatus et undulatus_ (_Cicindela sylvatica_), and which I afterwards met with in great abundance throughout the pine forests of this province, though rare elsewhere, flying or running with great celerity along the roads and paths. Here also it was my fortune to see a rare bird not hitherto described. If I am not mistaken, it is what Professor Rudbeck called _Pica Lapponum_. I could only examine it through my spying-glass, but I perceived all the characters of a _Turdus_, so that I do not scruple to define it _Turdus caudâ_, _rubrâ medio cinereâ_. It had moreover the flight and voice of a _Turdus_, screaming in the same manner. Towards evening I noticed a black sort of Plover, with legs of a yellowish green, and had also an opportunity of killing a Lomm (_Colymbus arcticus_), which I stuffed, and of which I made a description in my ornithological manuscript. The bill was not toothed.