The weather continued extremely fine, which in the opinion of the common people portended a good harvest.
June 25.
Sunday.—After divine service, I took leave of Lulea, in order to proceed to Lulean Lapmark, and arrived at the river of Lulea. I was informed that the salmon, which remain all winter in the Western Ocean, proceed gradually, as spring advances, up the river to this place to spawn. They enter the river about the middle of May, and reach this part of it by midsummer. Hooks have been found sticking in the side of some of the fish, which proved their having been here before.
The Subularia, a new Melampyrum[53], and Pedicularis (sylvatica) with a white
flower, occurred to me at Sunnerby. The white bog-moss (Sphagnum palustre) powdered, is applied to excoriations in the skin of young children. Towards evening I found in a sand-hill a loose kind of sandstone containing three per cent of iron.
[53] What this was does not appear. M. pratense and sylvaticum only have been found in Lapland.
June 26.
I gathered Gramen paleaceum (Juncus bufonius), both kinds of Tetrahit (Galeopsis Tetrahit and G. versicolor, Fl. Brit.), Geranium (sylvaticum) with a pale white flower. At Bredacker I noticed the Conyza (Erigeron uniflorum or E. acre), the purple-flowered Millefoil (Achillea Millefolium), and the Cirsium (Carduus heterophyllus.)
The Laplanders boil all their meat very thoroughly, and treat their guests with grease, by way of dainty, which is eaten with a spoon. They milk their reindeer twice a day. Each gives not more at a time than half a pint, or at the utmost three quarters.