Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/471

Rh timber, not sawn or split, amounted to 254,489 £.; of deals and battens, 786,501 £.; of staves, 66,820 £.; of firewood, 84,762 £.; and other sorts of timber, 10,942 £. The remaining exports to Great Britain comprise fish, ice, and small quantities of bar iron and copper ore. Cotton manufactures, to the value of 238,866 £., and wrought and unwrought iron, to the value of 96,430 £. in 1869, form the staple articles of British imports into Norway.

Next in value to the commerce in wood are the fisheries, which form the second staple commodity of export, and give employment and support to the bulk of the population from the Naze to the Warangerfiord, at the entrance of the White Sea. The fisheries are divided into the herring fishery, which usually commences soon after the new year; the winter cod fishery, which commences about the end of January; and the spring and summer fishery along the coast of Finmark to the White Sea.

The shipping belonging to Norway numbered 6,909 vessels, of a total burthen of 948,792 tons, at the end of 1868. At the end of 1863, there were 6,109 vessels, of 578,722 tons, manned by 34,817 sailors, mostly natives. Norway has, in proportion to population, the largest commercial navy in the world.

Colony.

Sweden—exclusive of Norway—possesses a small colony, the Island of St. Bartholomew, in the West Indies, 30 miles west of St. Christopher. The area of the island is 35 English square miles, with a population, in 1860, of 2,802 inhabitants. It produces sugar, tobacco, cotton, and cocoa. The colony, ceded by France to Sweden in 1784, is administered by a governor. Slavery was abolished in 1848.

Money, Weights, and Measures.

The money, weights, and measures of Sweden and Norway, and the British equivalents, are as follows:—