THE PINE. 41 



few mingling birch and juniper trees, he will have 

 a general and tolerably correct notion of the real 

 appearance of the country. If the sovereigns of 

 Europe were to be designated each by some title 

 characteristic of the nature of their dominions, we 

 might call the Swedish monarch Lord of the Woods, 

 because, in surveying his territories, he might travel 

 over a great part of his kingdom, from sun-rise until 

 sun-set, and find no other subjects than the trees of 

 his forests. The population is everywhere small, 

 because the whole country is covered with wood; 

 yet, in the nonsense that has been written about the 

 Northern hive, whose swarms spread such conster- 

 nation in the second century before Christ, it has 

 been usual to maintain that vast armies issued from 

 this land. The only region with which Sweden can 

 properly be compared is North America, a land of 

 wood and iron, with very few inhabitants, ' and 

 out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass;' but, like 

 America, it is also as to society in a state of in- 

 fancy." 



Except that the mountains are of less elevation, 

 and that the climate is more moist, the eastern side 

 of the Gulph of Bothnia does not differ much from 

 the western, as described by Dr. Clarke. 



The coast of Norway is more wild than that of 

 Sweden, and the temperature is warmer in the same 

 latitude, so that the pine forests extend rather farther 

 to the north. Spruce is hardly found within the 

 Arctic circle, but Scotch fir continues for nearly a 

 degree more, even at considerable heights; and be- 

 yond that, straggling trees are to be met with in 

 very sheltered places. The summit of the mountains 

 on the north of the Gulph of Bothnia may be taken 

 as the limit of the Scandinavian pines, as from thence 

 to North Cape there is nothing to be met with but 



dwarf birch. 



/ 



VOL. II. 4* 



