Unknown · 1899
The Atlas de Finlande, edited by the Geographical Society of Finland and published in Helsingfors in 1899 with government subsidy, comprises 46 maps and tables. It opens with a general map showing political boundaries, communications, and town significance, followed by physical, political, historical, and statistical maps, concluding with reproductions of maps by Olaus Magnus (1539) and Andreas Bureus (1626). Carefully compiled, it serves as a valuable reference for students and those interested in the region's geography and statistics.
William Rosier · 1900
W. Rosier reviews the Geographical Society of Finland’s 1899 Atlas de Finlande and its explanatory volume, Fennia 17. Favorable reception of the Society’s maps and charts at the 1895 London geographical congress prompted compilation of the atlas, with Finnish scholars, an editorial committee chaired by E.-D. Neovius, and a government subsidy of 43,000 francs. Its 33 plates combine maps and statistical graphics covering relief, geology, climate, vegetation, population, economic activity, prehistoric finds, and administration, and conclude with reproductions of maps by Olaus Magnus and Andreas Bureus. Rosier praises its cartographic and statistical techniques, explains its elevation tints and contours, and notes uncertainty in the geology of northern Finland. He highlights the population diagrams’ basis in regular censuses dating from 1750. The detailed specialist commentary appeared in Finnish, Swedish, and French; Rosier particularly commends Sederholm’s treatment of hypsometry and geology. He regards the atlas and text as a substantial geographical account and a tribute to Finland’s scientific and cultural achievements, arguing for international moral support for Finnish institutions and traditions under threat from the Russian Empire.
Hugh Robert Mill · 1900
Hugh Robert Mill reviews the 1899 Fennia text accompanying the Atlas of Finland, including its French edition, Atlas de Finlande. He distinguishes the text's Finnish, Swedish, and French editions from the atlas's French and combined Finnish–Swedish editions. The project grew from maps exhibited at the 1895 International Geographical Congress in London; a £520 government grant supported completion under a committee chaired by E. R. Neovins. Mill praises the survey, statistical, cartographic, and printing work undertaken in Finland. Each atlas plate receives a separately paginated explanatory memoir. The principal maps use a modified conic projection at 1:2,000,000. Mill compares relief, geology, drift, and railway maps to explain how glacial ridges carry transport routes. He surveys the work's treatment of climate, vegetation, forestry, population, education, agriculture, trade, communications, minerals, and industry. Temperature maps average 1881–1890 observations, while insufficient precipitation data restrict those maps to 1894 and 1895 separately. Forests occupy 47 percent of the country, and population statistics trace growth from 420,000 in 1750 to 2,380,000 in 1890. Mill particularly commends the water-power map, whose symbols encode fall heights and available horsepower, as useful for assessing resources in a country lacking coal and anticipating industrial electrification. The final sections cover prehistoric remains and early maps. He closes by praising Finnish diligence and education and, comparing southeastern Finland with southwestern Ontario, suggesting that Finnish emigrants would be an asset to Canada.
