MINES. 31 



in the matter of transport than capital and good engineers 

 will be able to surmount. But I cannot see where hands are 

 to be got to work the affair on a large scale, unless the 

 English follow the example of their Russian friends, and 

 turn Lapland into a second Siberia by sending out the 

 convicts to work in the Gellivare mines. I know labour is 

 so scarce up there, that the owners of the mines have used 

 all inducements for settlers to come up and work. A grant 

 of land was offered to each to farm, but I believe he had 

 to build his own log hut on it. A few did come up, and 

 bitterly I heard some of them complaining that they ever left 

 their homes in the more southern parts of Sweden to settle 

 in this wilderness. It is simply absurd to talk about agri- 

 culture in a district where I do not suppose, on an average, 

 they will get their crops to ripen more than once in three 

 years, and where a potato two inches long would gain a 

 prize if there were any agricultural meetings. The Laps, I 

 apprehend, would not be of much use, for like other wild 

 men, they are too fond of a roving life ever to settle down 

 to steady hard work. I have not much experience in mining, 

 but I suppose very little could be done in the winter, and if 

 men have to be brought up in the summer to work for a few 

 months, and sent back in the winter, it would be a very 

 costly affair. A good many public works are now being 

 carried on in Sweden, such as railways, etc. I do not know 

 whether they have any difficulty in procuring hands, but I 

 know that in Wermland, farm labour is now very scarce, so 

 many men being employed on the railways, and it is wonderful 

 how low the supply of labour is becoming during the sum- 

 mer months in the midland districts. Still, I suppose, 

 this is to be managed, and if I saw that half the shares, at 

 least, were taken up by the Swedes and the Norwegians, I 

 should begin to think that business was meant. 



The great mine of Danemora gives also a considerable 

 yield of iron, in 1860, 131,001 skeppund, and this is of the 

 finest quality, for when the price of ordinary Swedish iron in 

 England was 10 and 11, the " Oregrund" or Danemora 

 iron fetched as high as 22 to 32 per ton. 



