-- Stockholm and Lake Maelaren. -- Prehistoric
Tokens. -- Iron Mines of Sweden. -- Pleasing Episode with
Children. -- The Liquor Traffic Systematized. -- A Great
Practical Charity. -- A Domestic Habit.

One day's sail due north from Copenhagen through the Sound and the
Cattegat--Strait of Catti--brings us to Gottenburg, the metropolis of
southwestern Sweden. The Strait, which is about a hundred miles in
width, is nearly twice as long, and contains many diminutive islands.
Gottenburg is situated on the Goetha River, about five miles from its
mouth. In passing up this water-way the old fortification of Elfsborg
was observed, now dismantled and deserted, though it once did good
service in the war with the Danes. Cannon-balls are still to be seen
half embedded in the crumbling stonewalls,--missiles which were fired
from the enemy's ships. Though Gottenburg is less populous, it is
commercially almost as important as Stockholm the capital, and it is
appropriately called the Liverpool of Scandinavia. The town, with its
eighty thousand inhabitants, has a wide-awake aspect, especially in
the neighborhood of the river, where the numerous well-stocked
timber-yards along the wharves show that product to be a great staple
of the local trade. One is agreeably prepossessed upon landing here
by a certain aspect of neatness and cleanliness observable on all
sides. Indeed, few foreign towns produce so favorable a first
impression. The business centre is the Gustaf-Adolf-Torg, in which is
situated the Boers, or Exchange, decidedly the finest building
architecturally in the city. In the centre of the Torg is a bronze
statue of Gustavus Adolphus, the founder of the town, and which, as a
work of art, is extremely creditable to the designer, Fogelberg. The
history of the statue is somewhat curious. It seems that the first
one designed for this public square was wrecked at sea while on its
passage from Hamburg to Gottenburg, but was rescued by a party of
sailors off Heligoland, who claimed so extraordinary a sum as salvage
that the Gottenburgers refused to pay it, and ordered of the sculptor
a second one to replace that which had been saved from the sea. In
due time the second statue was furnished and set up in the Torg, Nov.
5, 1855, on the two hundred and twenty-third anniversary of the death
of Gustavus. The extortionate seamen who held the first statue were
finally glad to sell it to other parties for a comparatively small
sum, r