ganized in 1891, which has
taken up the manufacture of hand-carved articles, sheath-knives, skis,
sledges, and woven and embroidered woolen and linen goods after the
old Norwegian patterns.

The manufacture of lumber and wooden ware is one of the leading
industrial pursuits. With the exception of the two most northern
counties, practically every section of the country is represented by
sawmills and planing mills. Ship-building in recent times has attained
considerable importance, and the manufacture of paper of the chemical
wood-pulp variety has become one of the leading industries. There are
a few cloth, rope, and jersey mills at Bergen and Christiania, but the
textile industries of Norway are relatively unimportant. On the other
hand, leather, India rubber, glass, metal, and chemical industries
have become important of late years.

Norway is not rich in mineral products. The combined mining industries
do not yield more than two million dollars a year, and they furnish
employment to less than four thousand men. The Kongsberg silver mines
have been operated for more than three hundred years, but the recent
fall in the price of silver has reduced the output. The copper mines
at Roroes have been operated for two hundred and fifty years, and there
are less important copper mines in Nordland, Telemarken, and the
Hardanger. There are iron mines at Arendal and elsewhere, but the rise
in the cost of charcoal, due to the scarcity of wood, has greatly
crippled the iron industry. There are important soapstone quarries in
the Gudbransdal and the Trondhjem basin; green colored slate in the
Valders and at Vossevangen; and granite, syenite, and porphyry in many
parts of the country.

Measured by population and national wealth, the commerce of Norway is
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 industri