Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations.

  • Pehr Kalm
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    162/520 page 138
    fuel, although there also they spun it out with sticks, risqvistar, cut in the hedges. B ut a couple of Swedish miles, or about 14 English miles from London, and in places to which they had not any flowing water to carry up boats loaded with coals, for the most part bare wood was used, either from the trees they had cut down in re- pairing hedges, or from dug-up tree-roots, or fuel of some other kind, as brackens, Ormbunkar, furze, &c. Tin and silver-gildings soon took a black colour from the coal smoke, if they were not often scoured or cleaned. Statues of former kings, such as those of King Charles I., King Charles II., King James II., looked just as if the image of a nigger or of a Crossing-sweeper, en Morians eller Korstens-fäjares bild, had been set up, onlyin royal costume. When the snow had lain a couple of days on the roofs, it began to acquire a black colour. The houses were all either blackishorgrey from the coalsmoke. To aforeigner, and one unused to it, this coal-smoke was very annoying, besvärlig, for it affected the chest excessively, especially at night. I found in my own case that however free I was from cough when I now and again went into London from the country, I got [T. I. p. 164] one always as soon as I had been there a day, which never failed to be the case, even farther on in the summer when the air was warm, and there were not large fires in the town ; but as soon as I left London, and had been two days out in the country, I lost my cough. All who lived far out in the country, and were not accustomed to coal-smoke, even native Englishmen, had the same tale whenever they came up to London on their business. But when any- one had been for a time in London he no longer had so very manifest a sensation of it. Nevertheless, I am not altogether indisposed to believe that thisgreat coal-smoke is even one of the reasons that cause so many in England
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