Bergslagen 
The Old Mining District of Sweden 
By Ezaline Boheman 
To Swedish ears the name Bergslagen, which is applied to the old 
mining district of Sweden, rings with peculiar beauty, for it symbolizes 
all that has gone into the civilization of Central Sweden while creating 
the basic industry of the country’s economic progress. From the hearts 
of those hills has come the plentiful ore which, refined and transported 
by the help of their woods and water-ways, has given this district the 
proud old name of the “Iron-bearing Land.” 
The rich ore fields of southern Dalarne and Vastmanland form, so 
to speak, the trunk of the mining district of Central Sweden, which 
branches out into Uppland, Narke, Varmland, Smaland, and Halsing- 
land. In days of yore three different kinds of mining were distin¬ 
guished—silver mining, copper mining, and iron mining—yet iron was 
the ruling metal. 
The history of mining in Sweden dates back a long time, probably 
two thousand years, but there has been a proportionate advance from 
the ancient primitive methods of producing iron from bog-iron ore 
to the present highly improved 
processes of refining; and the 
social history of the miners and 
ore-workers themselves records 
a similar change and develop¬ 
ment. In the earliest produc¬ 
tion of iron from bog-iron ore 
one man alone might attend to 
all the operations, but when it 
became necessary or more profit¬ 
able to dig into the hills for the 
ore, men had to club together 
for the task. Thus arose little 
communities, precursors of the 
modern large iron works, and 
thus also was created a new 
social class, that of miners and 
iron-workers, o r “mountain- 
men,” as the Swedish term goes; 
and, though this class may now 
be said to belong to the past, it 
still survives in honored mem¬ 
ory, and the conception of 
mountain men includes some of 
By Hand Drilling the Falun Mine Was 
Worked for Centuries. The Method Is Now 
Replaced by Compressed Air Drilling 
