EXCURSION TO SWEDEN. 79 



the salt sea. It is in the form of an inverted bowl, and almost 

 as featureless. Its charm lies in its being absolutely opposite in 

 character to the city. It compels the townsman's thoughts to 

 Nature, and thereby saves hira. 



Upon leaving Stockholm it was felt the three days spent in it 

 had not been misspent ; something had been learnt of Swedish 

 civil life. The absence of "slums," and the class of people we 

 associate with them, was frequently commented on. Even the 

 lowest quarters, with lanes and narrow streets, have nothing 

 objectionable about them, either by day or night. The general 

 situation of Stockholm, its waterways, its gardens, its buildings, 

 and its people — all were the subject of admiration. 



On Sunday, 27th July, the party visited Dannemora and the 

 Osterby forests. The train conveying the members passed 

 through historic Upsala, regardless of the relics of Linnjeus, and 

 reached Dannemora about midday. Our school-books used to 

 contain the statement that the iron of Dannemora makes the 

 finest steel in the world. And this is actually so. No iron-ore 

 can be more pure than the black oxide, free from phosphorus, 

 that is there excavated. The mine has a very striking appear- 

 ance : open to the surface, a huge perpendicular quarry descends 

 to the depth of 600 feet. Its working was begun in the 

 fifteenth century, and about 15,000 tons of ore are yearly taken 

 from it. Nearly eight hundred workers are employed. As 

 the iron occurs chiefly in crystalline schistose rock, coal is not 

 associated with it. But in the blast-furnaces wood-charcoal 

 takes the place of coal, and it is possible that the superiority of 

 Swedish iron is almost as largely due to this fact as to the 

 purity of the ore itself. The absence of sulphur in charcoal 

 constitutes its superiority over coal for this use. The forests of 

 Osterby supply part of the charcoal. They are almost immedi- 

 ately adjacent to the mine, and extend over some 63,000 acres, 

 of which one-half is under young woods. The areas recently 

 stocked will be kept with a full " normal " crop up to their 

 eightieth year, when they will be felled. The expectation is 

 that they will then yield 3780 cubic feet (quarter-girth) per 

 acre — a quantity that, without reckoning thinnings, represents a 

 yearly increment of 47 cubic feet per acre. The species employed 

 are Scots pine and spruce. The former of these species is now 

 raised by natural reproduction. When nearing the end of the 

 rotation, mixed woods have the spruce taken from them ; and 



