HYDROGRAPHY. 323 



Lieutenant Onasetvich, of the Russian Navy, has recently 

 communicated to the Russian Geographical Society an ac- 

 count of his hydrographic labors on the eastern coast of Si- 

 beria in 1876. He executed several surveys in the vicinity 

 of Vladivostock Bay, and connected the longitude of that 

 town with Hakodadi, Hong-Kong, Yedo, and intermediate 

 positions. He also made an excursion to Behring's Strait, 

 determining astronomically the position of Petropaulovsk 

 and other points on the northeast coast of Asia, and survey- 

 ing various parts of the coasts, including that part of the 

 Arctic Ocean between Behring's Strait and 70 N. lat. 



An expedition in which great interest is felt has attempt- 

 ed, under the command of Professor Nordenskjold, to traverse 

 the northeast passage from Europe through the Arctic Sea 

 to Japan and China. Professor Nordenskjold considers that 

 the great volume of comparatively warm water flowing from 

 the Obi and Yenisei rivers, under the influence of the earth's 

 rotation, forms a northeasterly current, which, flowing along 

 the coast of Siberia, tends to create, between the coast-line 

 and the ice, an open channel through which a steamer might 

 find a passage. 



With this end in view, the cost of the expedition being 

 defrayed by the King of Sweden, Mr. Oscar Dickson, a 

 merchant of Gottenburg, and a Russian, M. Sibiriakoff, the 

 steamer Vega was purchased, provisioned, and fitted for a 

 two years' absence, and provided with officers and crew and 

 a scientific staff*. The Vega is of about 300 tons, and was 

 built for the whale-fishery among the ice, and has been ac- 

 companied by the Lena, a smaller steamer, as tender. The 

 Vega is commanded by Captain Palander, of the Swedish 

 Navy, and the scientific staff is composed of Messrs. Kjill- 

 man, Stuxberg, Almquist, Lieutenant Hovgaard of the Dan- 

 ish Navy, and Lieutenant Bove of the Italian Navy. The 

 expedition sailed on the 15th of July from Gottenburg, and 

 after touching at a Norwegian port to obtain seamen used 

 to Arctic navigation, proceeded on its way on July 25, 

 and arrived at the mouth of the Yenisei August 6. The 

 Kara Sea was nearly free of ice, only a few scattered frag- 

 ments being.- met with near White Island. On the 17th of 

 October Mr. Dickson received from Irkutsk a telegram an- 

 nouncing that the explorers had rounded Cape Cheljuskin, 



