NORDENSKIOLD AND THE NORTHEAST PASSAGE 321 



result of a carefully devised plan, based on the experience and study 

 of its projector, who had devoted years of thought and investigation 

 to the enterprise, collecting information from whalers and other 

 Arctic navigators as well as employing the results of his own 

 voyages. Two of these, made in 1875 and 1876, were to the mouth 

 of the Yenisei River, in Western Siberia, the expense being borne 

 by merchants and landholders having interests in Siberia, to whom 

 a trade-route from Europe to the great Arctic rivers of Asia would 

 have been of much advantage. 



The comparative ease with which these two tentative voyages 

 were made led Nordenskiold to push on with new vigor and enthu- 

 siasm towards the great object of his ambition, and he began eagerly 

 to prepare for the great voyage he projected. It involved an expense 

 of about $100,000, three-fifths of which sum was provided by Mr. 

 Oscar Deikson, of Gothenburg, a merchant who had helped to 

 finance his former voyages, and the remainder by King Oscar II, 

 in behalf of the government of Sweden. 



With this aid a screw steamer, the "Vega," was proyided, built 

 expressly for use in the Arctic waters and equipped in the most 

 complete manner available for a three years' scientific voyage. The 

 total force of the expedition, embracing botanists, zoologists, 

 meteorologists and crew, numbered only thirty men, Captain 

 Polander, of the Royal Swedish Navy, being second in command 

 and the actual captain of the vessel. There were also some officers 

 of foreign navies, taken on board at the request of their respective 

 governments, among them Lieutenant Bove, of the Italian navy, 

 who had been selected to command a projected Antarctic expedition. 

 It was a picked company throughout, and in this respect no expedi- 

 tion had ever been better equipped. The steamer "Lena" was 

 added as a consort to the "Vega" for most of her course, its goal 

 being the Lena River, on which stream it was to be used for trade 

 purposes. 



On the 2 ist of July, 1878, the company of explorers left the 



