460 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



tains, 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 

 extent 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 anticipa- 

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

 Sweden, and imagine the gulf of Bothnia to be 

 surrounded by one contiguous unbroken forest, 

 as ancient as tlie world, consisting principally 

 of pine trees, with a 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 the 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 /jzwe, whose 

 swarms spread such consternation in the second 

 century before Christ, it has been usual to main- 

 tain 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 

 infancy." 



Except that the mountains are of less eleva- 

 tion, 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 con- 

 siderable heights; and beyond 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. 



The principal rivers by whicli the pines of the 

 Scandinavian mountains are brought to the sea, 

 westward, for the purposes of commerce, are the 

 Gotha in Sweden, and the Glomm in Norway. 



The Gotha issues from the large lake of Wener, 

 in the centre of the southern part of Sweden; 

 and the lake receives many streams from the 

 mountains, some of which are of great length, 

 and pass through forests of the finest pines. By 

 means of these the pine trees are easily conveyed 

 to the lake, and then.ce by the Gotha to Gotten- 

 burgh. In former times, the timber was allowed 

 to float down the cataract of Trollhaetta, by 

 which many of the trees were spoiled, as there 

 is a succession of falls, and some of them as high 

 as thirty feet. Saw-mills are now erected at 

 TroUhsetta, and the timber is conveyed to the 

 river farther down, by a canal. The timber of 

 the south of Norway is brought by the Glomm 

 to the bay of Christiana, where a great quantity 

 is exported. Dr Clarke thus describes the pro- 

 cess of sawing timber on the banks of the Dal, 

 westward of the gulph of Bothnia; and we 

 believe it does not vary much aU over Scandin- 

 avia: 



"Between Meheda and Elfskarleby, about two 

 English miles before we reached the latter place, 

 we were gratified by a sight of some cataracts 

 of the Dul, which we thought far superior to 

 those of Trollhcetta. The display of colours in 

 the roaring torrent was exceedingly fine; rushing 

 with a headlong force, it fell in many directions, 

 and made the ground tremble with its impetu- 

 osity. The height of the fall is not forty feet, 

 but the whole river being precipitated among 

 dark, projecting rocks, gives it a grand effect; a 

 swelling surf continues foaming all the way to 

 a bridge, where another cataract, meeting the 

 raging tide, adds greatly to its fury. Such is 

 the commotion excited, that a white mist, rising 

 above the fall, and over the banks of the torrent, 

 rendered it conspicuous long before w e reached 

 the river. Close to the principal cataract stood 

 a sawing-mill, worked by an overshot wlieel, so 

 situate as to be kept in motion by a stream of 

 water diverted from its channel for this purpose. 

 The remarkable situation of the sawing-mills, 

 by the different cataracts, both in Sweden and 

 Norway, are among the most extraordinary sights 

 a traveller meets with. The mill here was as 

 rude and as picturesque an object as it is possible 

 to imagine. It was built with the unplaned 

 trunks of large fir trees, as if brought down and 

 heaped together by the force of the river. The 

 saws are fixed in sets, parallel to each other; the 

 spaces between them in each set being adapted 

 to the intended thickness for the planks. A 

 whole tree is thus divided into planks, by a 

 simultaneous operation, in the same time that a 



