68 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



is every reason to believe that it will become one of the 

 most important products of the country. 



From time out of mind, or at all events from the close 

 of the ninth century, Sweden has been renowned for its 

 fisheries and fishermen. A little more than a thousand 

 years before Professor Nordenskjold commenced his suc- 

 cessful voyage, Flosco, a native of that country, set forth 

 for Iceland, or Snowland as it was then called, discovered 

 a few years previously by a roving pirate. During the 

 middle ages there are various allusions to Swedish fisheries, 

 and in 1555 Olaus Magnus published his book entitled, 

 * Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,' to which we have 

 already referred. In more modern times Cederstrom's 

 treatise which appeared in 1857, and Christofiel's work, 

 published in 1829, may be mentioned as giving informa- 

 tion. From the situation of the country and the formation 

 of the coast, indented in every part with innumerable bays 

 and fjords, Sweden offers a natural resort for fish of almost 

 every description frequenting the Northern Waters, except, 

 perhaps, the whale ; and her splendid rivers provide a home 

 for many of the principal kinds of those inhabiting fresh 

 water. Sea-fowl in great numbers are found on the Baltic 

 and the coasts of Bothnia ; but though their presence is 

 doubtless prejudicial to the development of the spawn, it 

 does not perceptibly affect the vast abundance of supply. 

 Turbot and cod, salmon and mackerel, ling, herrings, lobsters, 

 oysters, and crabs, all find their w^ay from the ocean to the 

 Swedish shores, while the rivers are full of perch, pike, roach, 

 char, salmon, grayling, bleak and eels. No less than sixty 

 kinds of fish are said to be sold in the market of Gothen- 

 burg ; but this estimate includes different kinds of the 

 same fish, Stroemming, about the size of a sprat, visit 

 the eastern coasts of Sweden, especially of the province of 



