CHAPTER XX. 

 SHIPBUILDING AND SHIPPING. 



IN Norway there is a great consumption of wood as fuel 

 for domestic purposes and in manufactures ; there is also 

 a great consumption of it in buildings constructed entirely 

 of timber, and in carpentry, in the manufacture of furni- 

 ture, in the construction of railroads, and in the construc- 

 tion of carriages of various kinds. Surpassing all these in 

 interest for foreigners, is the consumption of it in ship- 

 building; but that more in reference to the shipping pro- 

 duced than the quantity of timber thus employed. From 

 of old the Norsemen have been famous for their maritime 

 enterprise. It may be that it was as sea-rovers that they 

 found their way to Scandinavia. The course followed by 

 the Lapps, and that subsequently followed by the Finns, 

 can be traced from the east through Northern Russia ; but 

 it is not so with the Norsemen. 



It is alleged that the Lofoden fishing boat of the present 

 day is almost exactly of the same build as the war galleys 

 of the ancient Vikings, in which they ravaged every shore 

 of Europe from, the bleak and storm-beat coasts of Orkney 

 and Shetland, to the sunny Isles of Greece. There is the 

 same lofty prow, the same sheer, and the single lofty mast 

 with its heavy square sail. 



In a treatise on Prehistoric Sweden, by Oscar Montelius, 

 it is stated that there was found in a peat-bog at Nydam, 

 in Jutland, two large boats, accompanied by Roman coins of 

 the second century, and numerous articles belonging to the 

 first age of iron. They were clincher-built. The one of 

 oak, the other of pine. They were not decked, and they ter- 

 minated both before and aft in a point, were fitted only 



