Uppland

There are oak trees growing on the highest rocks on the banks and I was amazed that they could find sufficient moisture there, but I concluded that the moisture that was seeping from the earth and running on the surface down over the rocks was what was also feeding their roots.

There were snails down between the rocks; interesting in that the points of their spiral shells were sharp.

I also found an uncommon sulphur-green moss.

I hastened from here to ӒLVKARLEBY, which is divided into two parts by this great river that flows from Lake Leksand in Dalarna.15 Most of the town is on the southern side, and there is quite a town there with many merchants’ stalls standing ready for market-day.

It is necessary to have a ferryman to get over this river and he never fails to ask for your travel pass. As soon as I saw him, 1 thought of Rudbeck’s Charon, for he was a fair imitation of him except in age.16 The river is a couple of gunshots wide.

In the middle of the river I sailed past the island described by Rudbeck. It is cut off from the land and has a foundation of solid rock. One solitary tree grows on it.

The bank on the north side of the river is quite perpendicular and I was amazed that it could remain so clean cut. I perceived that this was because there was clay mixed in with the sand. It would not have been possible to make it any steeper even by artificial means. There were horizontal lines that appeared to mark how deep the water had cut down year by year.

The sun shone during the morning but rain followed immediately afterwards.

Ӓlvkarleby, 16 3/4 miles. On the northern side I saw some ancient burial mounds. Here, at last, I beheld something I had never seen in Scandinavia before, that is, ‘Pulsatilla apii folio’ [Pale Pasque Flower].

The forest was full of rocks and varieties of willow and all sorts of wintergreens.

The rocks consisted mostly of layer upon layer of white and blackish granite, multi-striated.

Now and again the rain came on heavily and the sun shone in between.

When I had travelled 6 3/4 miles from Ӓlvkarleby, we came to HARNӒS ironworks, which takes some of its ore from Dannemora in Roslagen and some from Ӓngsö in Södermanland. These works were burnt down by the Russians but have since been rebuilt.

Here runs the river that separates Uppland from Gästrikland.

Mostly clay, and the forests with sandy soil; few hills; incompetent innkeepers.

Just as we left Uppland I saw a couple of oak trees, but no more after that – I was already on the Medelpad side by then, however.