Some Finnish geologists - Sederholm for one - consider it probable that during the Glacial period an Arctic sea (Yoldia sea) covered all southern Finland and also Scania (Sickle) in Sweden, thus connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Baltic and the White Sea by a broad channel; but no fossils from that sea have been found anywhere in Finland.
This afforded great satisfaction to Ivan, but it did not entirely satisfy his requirements, because the new route by the White Sea and North Cape was long and uncertain and for a great part of the year communications were stopped by the ice.
Those of the later Lacustrine period, on the contrary, are so numerous that there is scarcely one lacustrine basin in the regions of the Oka, the Kama, the Dnieper, not to speak of the lake-region itself, and even the White Sea coasts, where remains of Neolithic man have not been discovered.
Dvina flows with a very slight gradient through a broad valley, and reaches the White Sea at Archangel.
It covers in Norway the division (amter) of Finmarken and the higher inland parts of Tromso and Nordland; in Russian territory the western part of the government of Archangel as far as the White Sea and the northern part of the Finnish district of Uleaborg; and in Sweden the inland and northern parts of the old province of Norrland, roughly coincident with the districts (loin) of Norbotten and Vesterbotten, and divided into five divisions - Torne Lappmark, Lule Lappmark, Pite Lappmark, Lycksele Lappmark and Asele Lappmark.
He accompanied Peter to the White Sea (1694-1695); took part in the Azov campaign (1695); and was one of the triumvirate who ruled Russia during Peter's first foreign tour (1697-1698).
By this time the White Sea had become too narrow for Peter, and he was looking about him for more hospitable waters.
The White Sea has also been brought into connexion with the central Volga basin while the sister-river of the Volga - the Kama - became the main artery of communication with Siberia.
Other less important canals connect it with the Western Dvina (Riga) and the White Sea (Archangel); while a railway only 45 m.
The Great Russians occupy in one compact mass the space enclosed by a line drawn from the White Sea to Lake Pskov, the upper courses of the W.