M. Fortia: Travels in Sweden (kappaleita kirjasta A general collection of the best and most interesting voyages)

Kappaleita teoksesta:

A general collection of the best and most interesting voyages and travels in all parts of the world; many of which are now first translated into English

Digested on a new plan.
By John Pinkerton,
Author of Modern Geography, &c., &c
Illustrated with plates.
Volume the sixth.
London:
Printed for Longman, Hurst,  Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row; and Cadell and Davies, in the Strand.
1809.



CHAP. V. - Learned Men. - Artists. - Cabinets of Individuals.
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Mr. Swartz is the director of the King's cabinet of natural history at Drotningholm: although very young, he has yet travelled a great deal, and has added considerably to the knowledge of mosses, which has been his principal stury; he possesses the most perfect collection of them in existence: he has published a work entitled, Nova genera et species Plantarum, seu prodromus descriptionum Vegetabilium, in maximam partem incognitorum, quæ sub itinere in Indiam Occidentalem, annis 1783-87, divenit Olaff Swartz: M. D. Holmiæ, 1788. He has specified more than three hundred sorts of  lichen, one hundred and thirty of which only are described by Linnæus. A small number is peculiar to Sweden, no more than five or six. Vulpinus, a kind of moss found in Finland; the country people make use of it to poison wolves; it is found in Sweden alone, and yields a very pretty green colour. Tartareus, a moss which the English formerly purchased to extract a dye: a manufactory thereof has been actually established at Stockholm. Impressus, a new species, found hitherto no where but in Sweden, gives a red colour. Mr. Vestring, a doctor of physic at Norkoeuping in Ostrogothia, has made a number of experiments on the colouring principles of moss; he is shortly to give a dissertation of the result of his researches, which will be read at the Academy of Sciences. Already from different mosses the following colours have been extracted; yellow, red, and green of different shades, brown, black, and violet. Hitherto none has been discovered that have given blue, which appears a difficult matter to find. Mr. Swartz imagines, dyes among them may be found capable of vieing in brilliancy with cochineal; experimetns tried on silk and wool have succeeded, but not with cotton. The raugiserinus, & islandicus proboscidens serve for food. The Laplanders eat the raugiferinus boiled in water and milk; it is excellent for phthsicky coughs and consumption. Mr. Swartz brought with him from the West Indies more than a thousand new plants, the description of which may be seen in his work; he met with the same kind of moss in Jamaica, that serves as food for rein deer, which is rather singular.

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CHAP. VIII. - Manufactories and Manufactures. - Merchants. - Workmen.

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Cloth manufactory. We saw that of Mr. Hebbé adjoining the Dannwiken. This is not the most considerable, Mr. Barkins having more than forty looms, Mr. Hebbé no more than thirteen; each of which produces annually sixteen pieces of cloth, from eighty to ninety ells in length. The dearest cloth they manufacture is blue; it costs 3 dollars the ell; fine cloth, in other colours, from 2 dollars, 15 skillings, to 8 plotts; common cloth from 4½ plotts to 7; striped woollen cloth from 7½ plotts to 8; soldiers cloth 40 to 42 skillings: the credit three months. IN every manufactory there is a certain number of looms used for making of cloth for the troops on account of the crown: the cloth is dyed on the premises. Those emnployed in winding and twisting in the manufactory earn at most but 5 or 6 plotts in a week, working very hard: the spinners earn a great deal, in gaining a plott. All hands counted, three hundred persons find employment here. The fine cloths are sometimes eleven quarters wide, but the common breadth is nine quarters. The wool is imported from Poland and Holland; it costs five dollars the lispund, and loses 15 per cent. in washing. Spanish wool, according to the current price, (1791,) costs from 22 to 24 copper-dollars, and loses 16 to 20 per cent. on account of its being more carefully washed. The wool of the country is at 24, 28, and 32 skillings.

Manufactory of Colours. For a long time the English carried on a considerable traffic for mosses, at Gottenburgh, produced in abundance in that part of Sweden: people were at a loss to know what use they could be put to; at length it was discovered, that they extracted from them colours for dyeing: the Count de Ruuth, then minister of finance, resolved on supplanting the English in this commerce, and enriching his own country by the acquisition: he in consequence induced the King to make experiments, which ended in the doundation of the establishment in question, entirely upon the royal account. The greatest part of the moss called lichen Tartareus, comes from Marstrand and its environs: when dry, it is put under a large wheel with stone edges, after having been ground by it into tolerably small dust, it is thrown into large wooden tubs, with lime, urine, and other ingredients which remain a secret. The mixture remains in there for six months, during which it is stirred every day; by degrees it thickens, the watery particles evaporate, and it becomes at first thick as mud, and afterwardsof the consistence of the marle of grapes; as soon as arrived to this state, it is cut into small pieces, and exposed to dry in a large covered apartment. When dried and hardened, it is pounded in mortars, reduced to a very fine powder, and packed in casks. It is not intended that the sale of it shall begin until 150,000 pounds weight shall have been prepared.  It is reckoned, it will obtain five rix-dollars 26 skillings the lispund (eightreen and a half poun is English). A number of experiments have been made with it on woollen cloths, which have perfectly succeeded: the finest colours yet extracted are a violet, a flaxen grey, (gris de lin,) and a plumb colour (prune de Monsieur). This manufactory employes no more than five or six hands. The warehouse is very extensive. There are a considerable number of tubs, and an immense stock of urine.  The moss is stirred about in the tubs with large sticks, formed at the end in shape of an oar. When we saw this manufactory, permission from Count Ruuth was requisite; but the secred assuredly cannot long remain such.

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CHAP. XII. -Journey to the Mines; Sahla; Asvestad; Sater; Ornes; Fahlun; Mora; Elsfal; Quarries of Porphyry. - Dalecarlians. - Gesle. - Cataract of Elsscarleby. - Suderfors.

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You begin to smell the sulphur at a pretty considerable distance from Fahlun: there we arrived in the middle of the night, and from the number of open furnaces burning for the urpose of grilling the ore, these seemed to us a general conflagration. The mist over the mouth of the mine is very thick; the road runs by it and even under the spouts of the pumps.

Fahlun, the capital of Dalecarlia, is a town of no great size, containing but four thousand inhabitants. Its charter is dated 30th October, 1641: it possessed charters of earlier date, that is to say 1608 and 1624, but these were granted, principally that trials might be made, and have been amended in the charter first mentioned. The church buil in 1650, is covered with copper, which covering has already been renewed three times.

The traveller, if he be provident, will write beforehand to some merchant in order to procure lodging, (a number of people let apartments at so much per diem,) for owing to the small number of strangers who visit this place, there is but one inn in the square near the church, which it is true is a tolerably good one, but which may perchance be full, as we found the case. The only object of curiosity in this town is the copper mine and its pertinences: these certainly recomse you for your trouble, which on our part we were no ways disposed to regret.

The famous mine of Kopparberg is at the distance of five hundred toises from the town: its origin is unknown; its most ancient existing charter is that of Magnus Smek, in 1347, which ascertains that there were anterior characters. At different periods it has experienced damage, the falling in of parts of it in 1789, lasted for two days. The greatest depth of the mine (in 1791,) was one hundred and eighty.nine fathoms. The main shaft, the depth of which is forty, included in the one hundred and eighty-nine, and which the last fall has somewhat diminished, is two hundred fathoms long by one hundred and twenty broad; you descend to this by a wooden staircase formed on the rock, and at the extremity of this large opening you find the entrance into the mine: perhaps there is none in the world the descent of which is less fatiguing; it has staircases the whole way to the bottom,l the last twelve fathoms excepted, down which you go by an iron ladder; this is the most unpleasant part of the descent, or rather the only one that is at all so, it conducts you to the deepest part called Armfeldt's bole. The staircases are so convenient that even the horses employed in the mine, twenty-two in number, go up and come down them; but when by any extraordinary accident the staircases become impassable, they are let down the great pits by means of cords, in a species of harness made on purpose (for the Christmas review.) Some years ago the new staircases not being yet compleat and the old one being unfit for longer service, they were drawn up and let down constantly in this manner. The following are the different galleries you dinf in going over the mine, and their depths from the summit of the staircase of the great opening: the gallery of  Bonde forty-two fathoms. Of Tilas forty-three. A small gallery at present abandoned, owing to the fall of the roof in 1789; the vault now encreases in size as you arrive at the staircase of Gustavus III; a dirty road with a little streamlet: the vaults are six feet high and from four to five broad. The gallery of Sophia Albertine, sixty-five fathoms. The gallery of Prince Charles, seventy-two: vaults of masonry. The gallery of the Flotte, eighty-eight: here you distinguish a vitriolic smell proceeding from a communication with the shaft of Gustavus Adolphus; here is a forge, a furnace, and an anvil. The gallery of Mars, one hundred; here you feel a smart breeze, and are offended by a very disagreeable smell. The North gallery one hundred and nine. The gallery of Prince Gustavus one hundred and nine; they are at work in this at present. The Brother one hundred and ten. Rolamb one hundrend and ten; a large vault where they are now at work, they have supported the roof by means of scantling, and at present are compleating the boarding, having removed the cords. The Hall of Council one hundred and eighteen; here you find tables and a chandelier, here it was the King stopped and write his name in 1788, on the 20th of September, on some pyrites found in the mine, which is framed and glazed. He descended into the mine also in 1755 and 1768. Here as you ascend it is customary to take refreshment, which we were enable to do through the civil provision of Mr. Gahn. The gallery of the Crown one hundred and eighteen; this has a communication with King Frederic's shaft. The Cross, one hundred and twenty-three, has a very handsome vault, in which there were men at work; this is the bottom of Frederic Adolphus's shaft; here we saw the ore transported on poles fastened together, and laid on a carriage with six wheels, two of which are under the load. The gallery of the Polar Star one hundred and forty-nine. Of Stierncrona one hundred and eighty-two: the appearance of this pit is very curious; its machinery is worked by horses. A distance beneath is a communication with the previously mentioned pit. The gallery Frä one hundred and fifty seven fathoms deep, communicates with the pit Stierncrona: a machine worked by a horse, with a furnace and anvil. The gallery of the Cavalier one hundred and fifty-eight fathoms. Leyenmarck one hundred and sixty-eight. Baron Armfeldt one hundred and seventy-three. Grefve galerie one hundred and sixty-eight. At the extremity you come to the iron ladder which leads to Armfeldt's bole. The earth of the mine is not a mineral earth; the whole of the ore is concentrated in one spot not in vein, but metallic masses; that upon which they are at present at work is imagined to be of conic form, notwithstanding the opposite assertion of Mr. Jars, in his metallurgical travels, a work in many respects deservedly esteemed, yet which at the same time is not exempt from errors. Of pyrites that answer the magnet, found in the mine, there is none but that of a greyish cast, nor of any other description but the greenish and the whitish yellow; the first of these two contains copper alone, in the proportion of from 24 to 30 per cent; and on the proportionate mixture of these three pyrites, is that the richness of the ore depends. The lefver slag, or greyishpyrites (mispresented by Mr. Jars as reddish,) never contains any copper.

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The ore of Fahlun is poor, it was much richer formerly. In the seventeenth century the produce of the mine exceeded twenty thousand schippunds: at present the ore yields no more than two per cent. of metal. The great mine has four wells by which the ore is drawn up, that of Adolphus Frederik, that of King Frederic, that of the Count de Creutz, one hundred and twelve toises deep, and that of Count Wrede. The second is one hundred and twenty toises deep. There are six tubs, two hydraulic engines, and one for the pumps. The machines for raising the ore are nine in number. The great mine is divided into five districts, which are to be reduced to three. Each district has wtwo inspectors at a salary of 100 rix-dollars. The great mine and the free mines, (that is to say those which belong to individuals, and pay no duty to the crown) are united, (the second paragraph, page fory.six, of the work of Mr. Jars is untrue.) The cord used for the well of King Frederic, weighs seven schippunds: it might be better made. The workmen are prohibited descending by the means of the tubs, the vitriolic liquid eating the cords, and even the iron chains; the fist are of leather and last about a year. Last year (1790) two hundred schippunds of lead were extracted from the mine, eight hundred marks of silver (the first trial), and two hundred ducats value of gold.

The ore which contains silver is heated in a reverberating furnace, in which by the action of the blast-pipe on the fire that lead calcines and becomes litharge; the silfver when fused falling on the ashes of which the crucible is made.

The mine is divided into one thousand two hundred shares for the interior work alone; the price of a share of late years has been from 166 to 190 rix-dollars.

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Vitriol manufactory. In 1775, by private contract, a privilege was granted to three persons to make vitriol; the water from the mine is received in a reservoir, and thence conducted by a canal to fix compartments, made on a very high wooden scaffold, on hundred and twenty-eight feet long; these canals have number of holes on each side to admit the water to drop over faggots of three feet breadth, some lying and others erect, made of birch for want of orher wood; sixty-six cocks let out the water into the six compartments of the canal, which is about two feet broad from one extremity to the other, perhaps an inch more at the entrance of the first compartment; this slight increase of breadth, however, we conceive, has been accidental, although the size of the compartments might be less by degrees since the volume of water decreases. The water is then let into the first compartment, whence it falls into another reservoir, through the chinks; it is carried back into the second, whence it drops again into the third reservoir, and so on to the sixth, when it is plain it will deposit most of vitriolic matter, the quantity encreasing at every fresh exudation. The specific gravity of the water being 1280, on coming from the mine is reduced after the graduation to 1250, or at most 1260. In winter the works are suspended. After this operation it is put into leaden boilers with iron, to precipitate the copper, and saturate the acidity of the vitriol, where the water is evaporated for the space of twelve or thirteen hours, thence it is conveyed into basons to clarify, in which it deposits its sediment: to prevent the too sudden cooling of the matter, these basons are made of wood coated with clay, and are covered with planks; in these it remains from six to twelve or twenty.four hours, according to the gravity of the water; from these basons it runs by means of spouts into others to crystallize, wherein it is suffered to remain fourteen days, at the expiration of which the vitriol remains at the bottom, on the sides, and adhering to sticks placed in the basons; if any sediment yet remains it is heated anew; the crystals are laid on an inclined plain for the water to escape; the lye or first matter which is not crystallized is poured into a well apart, whence it is taken to be heated again with fresh lye. In order to dry the crystals they are laid on shelves of four stories, and in two or three days, according to the season, it is effected; the quantity of vitriol annually made is eight hundred schippunds, which fell at Stockholm for three rix-dollalrs, thirty-two schillings, per schippund.

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 Red colour. To make this they begin with washing the earth, which is afterwards baked in an oven for twelve hours; with this they paint their houses, mixing with it a small quantity of vitriolic water, mixed with flour and boiling water, which is the most general practise, or mingle with it oil of flax, which is a more expensive mode; it is also mixed with boiling vitriolic water, and a little pitch, or with pitch alone for painting the foors and roofs: with pitch and oil of turpentine, or oil of turpentine alone; this colour preserves wood from rotting from the generation of moss, &c. it  costs two rix-dollars the ton, of eleven lispunds Viet; a thousand tons it are annually sent to Stockholm.

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