EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
be of importance. At Trollhätta, Gullspångelf, and Lake Hjelmar also, we found everything feasible, and at less expense than had been anticipated. If I do nothing more in the matter, I act at least as a stimulus in it.
"Will you please remember me kindly to little brother Eric. I hear that his love for mechanics and drawing continues. If he can give the slip to his preceptor, I should like to induce him to follow me; when I would try in every way to promote his welfare, to instruct him in mathematics and other things, should it be desired. Please remember me also a hundred times to sister Anna."
The project referred to in this and a preceding letter, for which Swedenborg and Polhem had visited Trollhätta, was to connect the North and the Baltic seas by a canal, thus saving the long detour about the southern peninsula and the exposure to the hostile Danes, at Elsinore. It was a project of Bishop Brask in 1526, discovered by Benzelius and communicated by Swedenborg to Charles XII, who embraced it eagerly, but was prevented by death from completing it. As completed in more recent times the canal follows in great part the course undertaken by Polhem and
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