relatively important, due in a large measure to her enormous merchant
marine and the efficiency of her hardy seamen. Relatively to the
population of the country, Norway has the largest merchant fleet in
the world, and in the matter of steamships and sailing vessels she is
surpassed only by three countries--Great Britain, Germany, and the
United States. Not only is her fleet large, but her service is
efficient. Norwegian seamen the world over are esteemed for ability
and honesty, inspiring all commercial nations with confidence that
goods carried in Norse bottoms will be carefully and conscientiously
treated; and her seamen are everywhere sought to man foreign vessels.

In industries, the Swedes excel in the manufacture of iron. To fully
appreciate the value of this industry, one should visit Gefle, the
most important shipping point on the eastern coast of Sweden. Here
there is a fine harbor, with docks and warehouses owned by the
government. From this port the ore from the mines of central Sweden
is shipped to all parts of the world and handled by Brown hoisting
machinery, which is made in Cleveland, Ohio--the same that you see on
the ore docks at South Chicago and at Cleveland, Buffalo, Ashtabula,
and other points on the Great Lakes where iron ore and coal are
handled.

At Gefle, too, an annual industrial exposition is held, where you
may see on exhibit all the utensils manufactured or used by the
people--all kinds of machinery, tools, and implements, recent
novelties in patents, weaving, wood-carving, and a large part of the
exposition building is given up to beautiful articles in iron, in the
manufacture of which we have said the Swedes excel.

A little west of Gefle is the town of Fahlun, which is the