The following table shows the distribution of the Fin (Lapp) population of Norway in 1724, 1845, and four intermediate periods:—
| 1724. | 1756. | 1768. | 1825. | 1835. | 1845. | |
| Finmark | 2825 | 3210 | 3260 | - | - | 12,506 |
| Nordland | 3928 | - | - | - | - | 1735 |
| North Trondjem | 478 | - | - | - | - | 181 |
| South Trondjem | - | - | - | - | - | 75 |
| Hedemarken[20] | - | - | - | - | - | 41 |
No census was taken for the years and districts to which no number is assigned. The table, however, invalidates the current notion that all the so-called savage races are in a state of decrease.
In the copper districts of the north of Norway there is a considerable number of Kwain settlers, chiefly employed as steady and industrious labourers in the mines. There is also a Kwain colony in the districts of Soloers called Finskoven (the Fin Wood) in the southern part of Norway and on the frontier of Sweden.
The rest of the population is of the same Germanic origin as the Danes and Swedes; though purer than either. The recent and superadded elements are but few, German being the chief; and Bergen and Christiania being the towns where they are commonest. Of the Danish elements no account is taken; the two populations being so closely allied. Jewish blood is non-existent; owing to rigorous laws of exclusion, ill-assorted with the liberal constitution of the most republican government in Europe.
A Lapp population common to Russia and Norway is common to Sweden also; the districts in the last-named countries being called Lap-mark, and the population Lapps.
Populations more or less allied to the Lapps, covering the southward extension of the present Lapp area were originally the native population of both Sweden and Norway. This is generally admitted. So it is that the present Germanic populations are not aboriginal.
That the Swedes and Norwegians are the newest elements, and that certain Ugrians were the oldest, is undoubted. But it by no means follows that the succession was simple. Between the first and last there may have been any amount of intercalations. Was this the case? My own opinion is, that the first encroachments upon the originally Ugrian area of Scandinavia were not from the south-west, but from the south-east, not from Hanover but from Prussia and Courland, not German but Lithuanic, and (as a practical proof of the inconvenience of the present nomenclature) although not German, Gothic.
Sweden to the south of the Malar-See is called Goth-land. The opposite coast of Prussia and Courland was the land of the Gutt-ones, Goth-ones, or Gyth-ones; in the eyes of a German and in the German language, a Goth-land also. An island in the Baltic, midway, is called Goth-land as well. What is the natural inference from this? Surely, the close relationship of the three populations.