At some few places at which I stopped for refreshment in the course of this day's journey, I procured some of that preparation of milk called _Sätmiolk_, by some people _Tätmiolk_. In the neighbourhood grows the plant called _Tätgrass_, or _Pinguicula_, with its most curiously constructed flower. When the inhabitants of these parts once procure this plant, they avail themselves of it during the whole year; for they preserve it dried through the winter, and use it as a kind of rennet till the return of spring.
Here also I learned another preparation of milk. After cheese is made, the whey is boiled and skimmed, which operation is repeated till a sediment forms as thick as flummery. This is afterwards dried, and kept in casks for use. It makes an ingredient in bread, and is called _Mesosmör_.
The fire-places here were furnished with a regular apparatus for boiling the kettle. The Laplanders in general content themselves for this purpose with a large stick, which they place obliquely in the ground, so as to lean over the fire, and on which they suspend either a kettle or a fish; but here they have adopted quite another mode.
A square beam (a) is placed perpendicularly, so as to be turned upon a pivot at its base. To this a transverse beam (b) is fixed by a peg or joint, so that its extremity may be moved up or down, and teeth are cut in this beam, to hang the kettle upon, at a greater or less distance from the upright support. Underneath is another shorter piece of wood (c), forked at the extremity to catch the lower teeth of the last-mentioned beam, and fixed likewise by a joint at its base, in order to be elevated more or less at pleasure. The advantages of this contrivance are many.
1, the materials cost nothing, whereas any iron machinery is expensive.
2, here is no waste, for iron may be employed to more important purposes.
3, this is capable of being raised higher or lower according as the height of the fire may require, which an iron trivet cannot.
4, the iron trivet is troublesome to move about, which this machine does not require.
5, when the trivet happens to lose one of its feet, it is no longer of any use.
6, the circular part of the iron trivet must be proportioned to the size of the kettle it is to support, but this machine will hold any sized kettle.