Stone was collected near HAUKIPUDAS ferry. There were conglomerates of sand and small stones on the shore and they were so firm that they were used as oven-bricks. At one spot in the sand, where the river had eroded it away, I observed that the fixative for such rocks was nothing more than an iron rust that bonded the sand together.
Apart from that, the ordinary rocks were very fine-grained, split easily and looked as if they contained a little iron.
There was also another type: rough, rusty.
3 Frenchmen have written in the church at JUKKASJӒRVI:
France bore us, we have penetrated the whole of Africa,
and we have drunk from the Ganges;
here we came to the end of our world.
The boats used on the rapids are 25 to 30 feet long and 6 feet wide in the middle.
The powan nets are 3 foot 6 inches in height, long and fine-meshed: the holes are big enough to put 2 fingers in. They are set out on sandy shores.
They have 2 floats made of birch-bark sewn together at the edges; 2 fingers’ breadth wide, 3 long; also quite small stone-weights wrapped in birch-bark.
A different contraption for catching powan is set up in the full force of the rapids; it is like a hoop-net but not so deep. 6 feet high, 2 wide, 1 deep. It is fixed firmly to stakes and placed facing the current. When the fish turns side-on to the rapids in the middle of the current, it is pushed backwards and finds it impossible to make progress; so, in the strongest part of the current, it falls back into this net and cannot struggle out of it, thus being caught.
At Uleå there is a mineral spring that is not yet properly exploited. Judging by the taste it would seem to be good. It is situated right by the town, on a little island where there is a sawmill.
There is a life-size portrait of Messenius in the church and he is also buried there.
The church is among the longest wooden churches I have seen but its height is not in proportion to its length. The town is almost as big as Lund. The coat-of-arms of the town of Uleå was on the pulpit.
19th. After church I set off on my way.
Sledges have a cross-board for resting the feet against; the floor at the front is covered with sticks.
The LIMINGO grasslands began here and they cover a much bigger area than those at either Övertorne or Rödbäck. The land was very marshy to start with, full of horse-tail and with such an abundance of ‘Arundo’ [Reed] in particular that it resembled a forest. ‘Circutaria aquatica’ [Cowbane] was growing by the road in great quantities. I asked whether there were any deaths among the cattle and they answered: “Yes. Do you know anything that would help?. So-and-so has lost so many etc”.
‘Ribes fr.rubro’ [Red Currants] had been growing the whole way, also ‘Lenticula’ [Common Duckweed]; and there was ‘Lichenoides’ [Oak Moss] on the trees, from which powder is made.5