From this grass, as well as from the forests, marshes, fields, meadows, plants and lakes, I could see that this province is very like Småland, and I found quite a lot of plants that do not grow in Uppland, Södermanland, Östergötland or Skåne but do grow in Småland etc.
While walking towards a small lake in a meadow I could hear popping and crackling in the bog as if water were boiling, though in many places there was only sludge as the water had dried up. When I looked I saw that the whole ground was almost covered with snails and it was them that were making such a noise. I noticed the same thing in other similar places and, in places where nothing showed, if I dug down into the sludge I could see that it was full of them. They dig themselves down deeper as the water dries up and this is why they are to be found in their thousands in previously dry places as soon as water comes – a claim that I had often had my doubts about in the past.
‘Animalcules’ moved among them like sunspecks and I observed one with a round body the size of a pea and, something that was new to me, it was yellowish. Among the grass I saw numberless thousands of the tiniest mites, the males of which had hairy horns.
There were innumerable small, newly-hatched fish in the water. They were translucent and had very large eyes. I felt compielled to exclaim in wonder: “The whole world is filled with Thine Honour!”
I saw ‘Stellaria minima’ [water starwort] everywhere around here though botanists consider it to be rare.2 It is not a distinct species created by the Creator but one of the species in nature that has been changed by culture. For we know that the ordinary ‘Stellaria’ is always to be found floating in water whereas minima never grows in water but in places where the water has dried up during the dry season of the year. It is thus lack of nourishment that prevents it growing erect and makes it creep and remain small. If anyone doubts this, let him put it in a brook where there is a steady supply of water – or put the greater Stellaria somewhere where the water is beginning to dry up -and he will get confirmation of it.
23rd. I went up to the church in Old Luleå. Right by the door I was shown a hole that the old order of monks had made in the stone wall. Its diameter and its depth were of an equal size; it was quite round and its bottom was smoothed off in an egg shape. It was a test that the cathedral chapter used to use to judge the glans penis of men who had been rejected by their wives. In the church I was shown a valuable altar painting and old statues of martyrs with cavities in their heads through which, I was told, water was poured so that tears came out of the eyes as if they were weeping. Also two posts on which there were images that, by means of a suitable arrangement of cords, were supposed to have been able to raise their hands in worship.
In the morning I went a mile and a half north of the town to inspect a spring that the dean and a number of other people used. The dean was gouty and, thanks to the spring water, he had passed a number of stones. It lay in a marshy and mossy situation but nevertheless pushed up sand. The water, however, was clear, sparkled in the glass and showed a sulphur-spring iris when held up to the sun. It tasted slightly of vitriol but was easily arunk. When swirled around it smelled like gunpowder. It turned a solution of oak-apple reddish but did not stain white paper, nor did it change blue paper. There was not much ochre in it. It produced a silvery scum.
The weather today, yesterday and the day before yesterday has been warm and mostly calm. Indeed, there has been sunshine ever since the 18th. The meadows offered a fine and splendid prospect and everything was pleasing to the eye and health. The summer may he shorter here than anywhere else in the world but I must admit that it is more pleasant. I have never in my life lived more healthily than now.
24th. Midsummer’s Day. The beauty of the countryside in summer and spring is preferable to anything in the world, thanks to the air, water, plants, colours, the songs of praise of its adorants and 600 other things.
In the morning I went out botanising but came upon nothing of interest apart from ‘Arisarium Riv.’ [Bog Arum] and ‘Corallorhiza’ [Coralroot Orchid].
The people told me of a cattle disease that plagues this district severely. If the cattle are flayed while their blood is still warm and if the slightest drop of blood gets on to the skin of those flaying them, the skin turns black, is eaten away and goes as if it had been burned. In some cases the whole hand has swollen up and festered. In one case it even affected someone’s face after blood had come in contact with it. Many people have actually died from this, so no one dares flay the animals and they bury them at once instead. They bathe the animals once a day as a preventative measure and they say that that keeps them immune.
They told me that between 200 and 300 cattle in Torneå die during the summer when they are out to pasture on a marshy area. Could the cause perhaps be ‘Circutaria’? [Fine-leaved Water Drop wort].
They fertilise heathland with soil from bogs and put sand on clay soil.
‘Ledum’ [Labrador Tea] is put among the hay in the bams to drive away mice.
I got silver ore from Nasafjäll here, also the unusual iron ore from Luleå Lappmark that is called Old Man’s Silver: still unprospected, formerly exploited a little, now extracted again -gives a 60 percent yield, 7 miles from Kvikkjokk, called Rutivari.
Also, lead-like mica from the parish of Piteå; it blackens the fingers.