KE.
C H A P T E R IV .
JOURNEY THROUGH NERIKE AND WESTMANLAND TO STOCKHOLM.
Account of the constitution of Nerike—Iron Mine of Hesselkulia—other Mines—Uncommon
Frost—Tobacco—Potatoes—Malefactors hung in chains—Swedish camp—Stopped by a
Custom-house Officer—Description of Örebro—The Diet—House of Nobles—Clergy
—Peasants—Burghers—Anomaly in the Swedish Constitution—Strange Laws enacted by
the Peasants—Manufactures—Rocks between Örebro and Arboga—Arboga—Koping—
Anecdotes of Scheele—Yesteros—Cathedral—Monuments—Fate of King Eric XIV.—
Country between Vesteros and Stockholm—State of Agriculture , in Sweden.
N e r i k e , into which we. entered at a place called Bodarne, at no
great distance from Mariestadt, is one o f the most beautiful provinces
in Sweden. The. southern and western parts of it consist o f low
ridges of gneiss rocks, divided from each other by intervening valleys.
These parts are similar to the same divisions o f West Gothland, with
this difference, that,the gneiss rocks in Nerike are not so high nor so
abrupt in their terminations as those o f West Gothland, and that beds
of primitive limestone occasionally occur in them. The central and
northern parts of Nerike are quite flat, and consist partly o f alluvial
soil, often loose sand, thickly scattered .with enormous blocks o f gneiss,
and partly, of floetz beds, which, as far as I was able to examine their
structure, had a striking, similarity to the twelve floetz hills in West
-Gothland; described in the- last chapter. That is to say, that immediately
over the gneiss, which I conceive to constitute the basif o f