50 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



As the ice melts in the spring the stream carries with it 

 the logs, which lie upon the ice, down to the river, into 

 ' ' liinsor " which are ready to receive them, and here each 

 owner looks for his mark, collects his timber, binds 

 them together in long timber rafts, sixty or seventy alns 

 long, and floats them down either to the saw- works or a 

 harbour. 



These ' ' lansor " are a sort of floating harbours to keep 

 the timber at the side of the river, that it may not be 

 carried down by the stream. A lot of trees are chained 

 together by the ends, and placed across the stream to hem 

 in all the logs which float down within their boundary. 

 Many thousand logs are thus collected in great masses. It 

 sometimes happens that these "lansor" break, then the 

 trees are carried down the stream by hundreds, crush down 

 anything that opposes them, and do not rest till they reach 

 the still water in the lake, into which the river falls. 



One night in Carlstad, some years since, the inhabitants 

 were wakened by the report of a cannon and the beating of 

 drums, and as this is the signal of fire in the northern 

 towns, they all sprang up in great consternation ; but it 

 was no fire. One of these ' ' lansor " had sprung about two 

 miles up the river Klar ; the logs came tumbling down the 

 stream one over the other like a shoal of sea monsters, but 

 as soon as they reached the bridges they were stopped by 

 the piles. Fresh logs were brought down every minute, 

 which thundered like battering rams against the wooden 

 wall, which was gradually becoming higher and higher, 

 and there was every probability of the two bridges (one of 

 which was the largest in Sweden, with twelve arches) being 

 carried away. The river kept rising and threatened an in- 

 undation to the town. By the exertions, however, of the 

 inhabitants, who stepped out on the logs with boat-hooks, and 

 forced the timber through the arches, the bridges were 

 saved and the timber which was carried down the stream 

 floated into the Wener, and many weeks elapsed before it 

 was recovered by the owners. It must have been a strange 

 and wild scene on this night. 



