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336 VII. TIME OF FREEDOM AND NEOLOGY.
matical and mechanical nature, amongst which we observe
a submarine vessel to be used in war, a system of locks for
canals, a universal musical instrument and a flying
machine (Holmquist :
p. 22). He then published the first
scientific periodical ever issued in the country, the
Dczdalus Hyperboreus, in which he co-operated with his
elder friend, Christopher Polhem, a great engineer, whom
he named the Archimedes of Sweden. This periodical
attracted the king s notice, and further acquaintance
ripened into friendship between himself and Charles XII.,
who aspired, among other things, to be a mathematician.
The king, who recognized his powerful genius, made him
an assessor of the College of Mines the board of directors
who governed this side of Swedish industry an office
which his mother s father had held. The king employed
him with Polhem in the construction of the docks at Carls-
crona, in the development of the salt industry, and in the
project for a canal through the lakes across the peninsula,
which Hans Brask had suggested long before, as well as in
the usual mining operations. Swedenborg s mechanical
genius enabled him even to help the king directly in his
campaign against Norway in June, 1718. The direct
approach to Fredrikshald and the fortress of Fredriksten
up the Svinesund was blockaded by the Danish and Nor
wegian fleets, supported by English vessels. Sweden-
borg, who was at Stromstad with the Swedish fleet on the
coast of Bohuslan, either accidentally or summoned for
the purpose, devised machinery by which a number of
vessels were drawn across the mountains of Bohuslan,
some fifteen to seventeen English miles, to the upper end
of the Idefjord, where they served to draw the pontoons on
which the artillery was placed, and to set it in the
desired position against the fortress. But this siege was
destined to be the end of the friendship with the king,
which promised so great a career for Swedenborg. On
the 30th November, 1718, the king was shot down by an
unknown hand as he was inspecting the works on the east
side of the Fredriksten. Swedenborg, in one of his later
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