40 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



threads. In that place, too, they have recourse to 

 an artificial dam; but the dam is made of the trees 

 themselves, which are left in a heap till the swelling 

 of the river carries them away. Pines have not been 

 found in Scotland at an elevation of more than 1500 

 or 2000 feet; and at even less than that, they are 

 very stunted, if not sheltered in the ravines. 



The immense Scandinavian forest, which occupies 

 the slopes of the mountains, and banks of the rivers 

 and arms of the sea, in all the central parts of 

 Sweden and Norway, is one of the most conside- 

 rable on the Continent. This forest consists for 

 the most part of Scotch fir and spruce, the former 

 yielding red or yellow deal, and the latter white. 

 In very many places, both on the Swedish and the 

 Norwegian side of the mountains, these forests are 

 not accessible; and they are of value only when 

 situated near the banks of a lake, an arm of the sea, 

 or a river. 



Dr. Clarke gives the following account of the ex- 

 tent of the pine-forests on the Swedish side of the 

 Gulph of Bothnia: 



" At Helsinborg, some fir trees of an astonishing 

 length were conducted, by wheel-axes, to the water 

 side. A separate vehicle was employed for each 

 tree, being drawn by horses which were driven by 

 women. These long, white, and taper shafts of deal 

 timber, divested of their bark, afforded the first 

 specimens of the produce of those boundless forests 

 of which we had then formed no conception. That 

 the reader may therefore be better prepared than we 

 were for the tract of country we are now to survey, 

 it may be proper to state, in the way of anticipation, 

 that if he cast his eyes upon the map of Sweden, 

 and imagine the Gulp of Bothnia to be surrounded 

 by one contiguous unbroken forest, as ancient as the 

 world, consisting principally of pine trees, with a 



