The process of preparing the copper does not present the bustle and activity nor the glare and brilliancy of an ironwork. The smoke and vapour disengaged from the ore are of the most noxious and disagreeable kind, and impart to the whole neighbourhood a singularly gloomy character. The stunted vegetation is so kept down by it that there are no trees, and, instead of grass, a dry, yellow, sickly growth of chamomile barely covers the ground. When viewed from a neighbouring eminence at night, the livid glare from the chimneys, the rolling white clouds of smoke which fill up the valley beneath, the desolate-looking heaps of slag, and the pungent sulphurous vapours remind the spectator of ‘The dismal situation, waste and wild, The dungeon horrible on all sides round,’ where Satan lay weltering after his fall from heaven. After England, Sweden, Germany, and Russia take the lead among the copper-producing countries of Europe. The mines of Fahlun in Dalecarlia are no less remarkable for their picturesque appearance than the celebrated iron mines of Dannemora in the same province. A vast pit, 1,200 feet long, 600 feet broad, and above 180 feet deep, with precipitous, sometimes vertical, and occasionally even overhanging walls, opens before the spectator, who might fancy himself standing on the brink of an enormous crater. ‘The aspect of this deep chasm,’ says Professor Haussmann,[50] ‘affords a desolate picture of ruin caused by improvidence and waste, as it owes its origin to the successive fallings in of subterranean excavations carelessly widened and left without sufficient supports. From the vast mounds of rubbish accumulated at the bottom of the pit, remnants of ancient shafts, formed of thick beams of wood, are seen protruding, but these show only a part of the devastation produced by the great falling in which took place in the year 1678. On the northern side of the pit is a broad and convenient wooden staircase, by which not only the miners, but also the horses used for working the subterranean machinery, descend to the bottom. Thence it gradually winds underground to a depth of 177 fathoms.’ Footnote 50: ‘Geological Travels through Sweden.’