forestry Conditions in Sweden. 47 



ings of which are strewn with small rocky islands. Thus 

 protected the fjords offer excellent harbors and are therefore the 

 natural stations of commerce and industry, i. e. of the wood 

 industry, the centers of which are found along the rugged coast 

 of Sweden. 



These streams bring the rough logs to the saw mills and pulp 

 manufacturing plants, and from their yards the products are 

 loaded directly on to the ships. 



Geologically, Sweden differs widely from Denmark and the 

 North German plain. The bedrock underlying the forest soils 

 belongs almost exclusively to the fundamental formation of the 

 Archean rocks, granites, gneisses, and quartzites. Only small 

 areas inside the timbered belt contain paleozoic formations. The 

 bedrock crops out quite frequently in the level and hilly areas, 

 generally in the form of rounded knobs or ridges, but the crevices, 

 ravines and troughs of the same are always filled with diluvium, 

 which conceals the bedrock over long distances. Only on steep 

 slopes is the soil a product of erosion of the bedrock, but even here 

 it is frequently mixed with diluvial depositions. The forest soils 

 must therefore be classed as diluvial. The soils of the glacial 

 moraines have, however, gone through a series of displacements 

 in postglacial times, due to upheaval and depression of the land- 

 surface, and hence inundation by the waters of the sea and the 

 action of streams. 



The more or less dry, level stretches of sand, usually covered 

 with scrubby pine growth, should be distinguished from the hilly 

 gravel of the moraines on which grow mixed stands of pine and 

 spruce, or spruce pure, and also from the gravelly ridges of 

 coarse or fine but smooth material, which belongs to the poorer 

 soils and as a rule can only grow pine. In contrast to these 

 glacial soils those formed by disintegration of the fundamental 

 rock formations, are found in the mountains and show a greater 

 or smaller degree of fertility according to their origin. 



Due to the large extension of the kingdom from north to 

 south, the climate of Sweden shows great variations in the dif- 

 ferent provinces. Southern Sweden (Schonen) possesses a cli- 

 mate similar to the insular climate of Denmark. On the west 

 coast the influence of the gulf stream and ocean is quite notice- 

 able. The harbor of Gotenburg is free of ice. The farther one 

 advances to the north, however, the more raw and continental 



