and astronomy. The last Secretary of the Academy was a mathematician;
thé present is a botanist. This may perhaps occasion a difference
in the complexion of the Transactions, and thus upon the whole
add to the variety and consequent interest of their labours.
There is a considerable library belonging to the Academy,- a very
great portion o f which consists of foreign books, chieflyin the German
and French languages; though there are likewise a considerable number
o f English books.
O f their collection o f natural history the most complete part is the
class o f amphibious animals ; in quadrupeds they are rather poor. The
species o f birds which they possess amount to about 4 0 0 ,. among
which are almost all the birds found in Sweden. Their collection of
shells is beautiful, but not very numerous. The collection o f quadrupeds,
birds, and shells at Upsala is much more extensive. Besides these
specimens of animals there are many curiosities from the islands in
the South Seas and other parts of the world, presented to them by
Sparrman and other travellers. But o f these it would be needless to
give any account to the English reader, as much more complete collect
tions of similar curiosities may be seen in, the British Museum, and
some other places in Great Britain. One o f the greatest curiosities, to
me, was a piece of the bread which in some parts o f Norway and the
north of Sweden is made o f the bark of trees ; it was a thin cake, of
a brownish colour, and certainly had not a Very inviting appearance.
The Academy possesses a collection o f dried specimens o f plants ; but
they have no minerals. In the meeting room are hung portraits o f all
the eminent members o f the Academy deceased. Among others there
is a portrait of Bergman, which Mr. Swartz, who knew him, assured
me was a very good likeness. I looked in vain for a portrait of
Scheele ; all my inquiries after such a portrait in Sweden were unsuccessful,
and Mr. Gahn, at Fahlun, who had been his intimate friend,
assured me that no portrait o f him existed. When I was at Stockholm
the President of the Academy was Archiater Afzelius, professor
o f medicine at Upsala, and physician to the Crown Prince, a nephew
o f the celebrated Bergman. .
I spent several days in looking over the collection o f minerals belonging
to the College of Mines. It is very extensive, consisting o f
specimens from all the provinces of Sweden, arranged according to
their localities. Such a collection, from the very nature of it, must
abound in repetitions; but it is valuable by conveying a general idea o f
the mineral productions o f every part of the country. The specimens
are not always well chosen, and they are rather dirty, which makes it
more difficult to determine their nature. Iron ores are by far the most
numerous: copper ores come'next. Lead is uncommon, and the
other metallic ores in such small quantities that they scarcely deserve to
be noticed. The rocks are mostly primitive or floetz trap. I saw not
a single specimen of a transition rock in the collection, and but few of
floetz rocks. The most showy mineral in the collection was the garnet,
some of which are o f a great size, and very regularly crystallized. The
finest specimens came from Fahlun, where they are now scarce. I
saw specimens o f spinell in lime-stone discovered by Mr. Svedenstierna.
The lime was used to facilitate the fusion o f iron ore, and the workmen
complained that it did not answer the purpose, and that the more
lime they added the more infusible the iron ore became. The discovery
of the spinell, which was scattered in profusion through the limestone
explained this anomaly. The same skilful mineralogist discovered
zircon in the iron ore of Gellivare. In some of the specimens of that
ore, in the cabinet of the College o f Mines, the crystals of zircon were
very distinct.
The cabinet of the College of Mines contains likewise a good many
foreign specimens, chiefly from Britain and France. Many o f them
were beautiful and valuable ; but to me, whose object it was to see as
many Swedish minerals as possible, they were not so interesting as
they would naturally be to a Swede. One o f the greatest curiosities
in the cabinet of the College o f Mines was a large specimen, which
Mr. Hjelm informed me came originally from China; It consists o f a
large piece of a tree: in the centre it is perfect wood: as we approach
the circumference, it becomes more and more petrified, and there is a
zone at the outside more than two inches thick, of perfect woodstone.
P