152 SCANDINAVIA. 



which that of Ammeberg, at the northern extremity of Lake Wetter, yields three- 

 fourths of the whole amount. It belongs to the Belgian Vieille-Montagne Com- 

 pany, which exports the metal for its works in Belgium. Coal is won in Scania. 



Manufactures. 



House industries are still far more developed in Sweden than in all the more 

 thickly peopled European countries. In a region where the markets occur at 

 such long intervals each family naturally endeavours, as far as possible, to supply 

 its own wants. Certain processes and styles of ornamentation are found only in 

 the remote Scandinavian hamlets, and date probably from prehistoric times. 

 Hazelius, founder of the Scandinavian Museum in Stockholm, and other learned 

 archa)ologists are carefully studying these primitive industries before they have 

 been swept away by the manufactured goods already threatening to invade the 

 remotest upland hamlets. 



The chief Scandinavian factories utilise the natural products of the land and 

 surrounding waters, iron, timber, and fish. All the seaports are occupied with 

 the building and repairing of fishing-smacks, the weaving of nets and other 

 tackle, the curing and forwarding of fish. The métallurgie works use up the 

 ores in sufficient quantities to export a large amount of the produce, while the 

 timber is shipped, either as planks or as furniture, to the remotest European 

 settlements. Most of the mechanical saw-mills are situated along the seaboard 

 about the mouths of the rivers, which float down the timber in bulk to Gefle, 

 Soderhamn, Hudiksvall, Sundsvall, Hernosand. It is only quite recently that 

 the Swedes have taken to export their timber worked up into inlaid floorings 

 and cabinet pieces. This industry has been developed especially in Goteborg, 

 and has thence spread to all the Swedish towns engaged in the timber trade. 



The wood is also exported in the form of matches, a branch of industry in 

 which Sweden already takes the foremost rank. The asjjen, which supplies the 

 best material, has rapidly risen in value, every factory now consuming these 

 trees by the thousand. In Sweden, and Norway also, the greatest quantity of 

 wood is used up in the manufacture of paper. This branch was first established 

 at TroUhiittan in 1857, and it is now carried on in about forty different factories, 

 jointly yielding a yearly average of about 30,000 tons. The vast heaps of saw- 

 dust formerly encumbering the ground about the saw-mills will henceforth be 

 converted into material for packing, wrappers, books, and especially newspapers. 



Amongst the industries imported from abroad the most important are cotton 

 spinning and weaving. The first essays were made after the Napoleonic wars, 

 and Scandinavia already imports about 13,000 tons of the raw material yearl}^, 

 employing thousands of hands in converting it into yarns and tissues. Of older 

 date is the woollen industry, which began early in the seventeenth century at 

 Jonkoping and Upsala, but which, notwithstanding its subsequent development, 

 still falls short of half the local requirements. There are also some flax, hemp, 

 jute, and silk works, and, exclusive of hardware, the Swedish manufacturing 



