28 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



afterwards three and a lialf rqr. bco. (or about 5s. 6d.), 

 although the cost of smelting was not 6d. 



Gellivare mountain, with all its appurtenances, was sold 

 by Hermelin to King Carl Johan, and in 1856 was sold by 

 King Oscar to a Swedish and Norwegian company. In 

 1857 it was proposed to lay a line of railway, sixteen and a 

 half Swedish miles long, at a cost of five million rqr., nearly 

 in a straight line from Gellivare to Strdmsund's harbour in 

 the Bothnia. To aid this project, Government offered the 

 land and wood free, a toll-free import of all required ma- 

 terial, and a toll-free export of 150,000 skeppund of ore; 

 but the railway was never begun, and the company sold the 

 whole concern to some Gothenburg merchants in 1860. 

 The estate covers altogether an area of 80,000 tunnland; 

 and this domain, so rich in iron ore, still remains of very 

 little real value to any one, compared to what it might 

 become if a sufficient capital was brought to bear in working 

 the mines properly. 



Dr. Clarke in 1824, in describing this mountain, says: 

 " Gellivare is the largest iron mine in Sweden, and per- 

 haps in the whole world. Its layer of ore extends for 

 several miles, and is so rich that it leaves 60 per cent, 

 of iron." 



An English engineer, Mr. Thomas, who inspected it in 

 1857, declared " that through a systematic manner of work- 

 ing it, and with an easy accessible shaft, and without any 

 pump apparatus, seven to eight million tons of pure mag- 

 netic iron ore could be easily obtained." 



It is difficult to say what might be the produce of 

 this immense iron field, as they have only as yet taken the 

 upper layer, and never sunk to any depth ; but the com- 

 mittee which visited it in 1817 reported that though this 

 mountain, which they found to consist of two ridges, the 

 one about 18,000 and the other about 10,000 feet in length, 

 could not be called a mass of ore, it might nevertheless be 

 properly called a mountain of iron ore in which the ore did 

 not lie in veins and cavities only, but appeared regu- 

 larly spread over a surface of fourteen million square Swedish 



