LITERARY NOTICES. 



129 



Sweden, in 1875 and 1876, and was con- 

 vinced that the open navigable water which 

 had carried him so far extended probably to 

 Behring Strait. He laid his plans before 

 the King of Sweden and other persons, who 

 were known to sympathize with his object, 

 and received from his Majesty, Mr. A. Sibi- 

 riakoff, and Mr. Oscar Dickson, whose por- 

 traits on steel worthily appear in the vol- 

 ume, pledges of substantial support, selected 

 his company, prepared his vessels the Vega, 

 a steam-whaler, the Lena, as a tender to go 

 ahead in doubtful places, and two merchant- 

 vessels, which were to carry coal for the ex- 

 ploring vessels and sailed from Maosoe, a 

 few miles southwest of Xorth Cape, on July 

 25, 1878. Here the expedition proper be- 

 gan and hence it was conducted through the 

 sea that washes the northern edge of the 

 Old World, along the coast-lines of provinces 

 of which readers may have seen indefinite 

 mention, and conceived hazy ideas, but of 

 which they could have hardly had distinct 

 notioDS before, till it emerged again through 

 Behring Strait into the regions of civili- 

 zation and exact knowledge. Of the sea 

 and coasts along the Arctic borders of Eu- 

 rope and Asia, Professor Nordenskiold's ac- 

 count gives the fullest and most interest- 

 ing descriptions, touching nearly all the 

 subjects of interest appertaining to them. 

 First, we have the history, which in the pres- 

 ent case naturally relates and is largely con- 

 fined to previous voyages to the same re- 

 gions, the relation of which, Professor Xor- 

 denskiold remarks, adds a much-needed va- 

 riety to the interest of the story, " for near, 

 ly all the narratives of the older northeast 

 voyages contain in abundance what a sketch 

 of our own adventures has not to offer, but 

 what many readers, perhaps, will expect to 

 find in a book such as this accounts of 

 dangers and misfortunes of a thousand sorts 

 by land and sea." Then come geographical 

 descriptions of features of land and sea, 

 with the varied aspects of summer and win- 

 ter phenomena according to the season when 

 the author witnessed them ; natural history, 

 embracing the vegetable and animal life of 

 the whole Arctic stretch covered by the voy- 

 age; geology; and the delineations of the peo- 

 ple. In the latter category are included full 

 and satisfactory as well as entertaining ac- 

 counts of those curious tribes, the Samoyeds 

 vol. xxi. 9 \ 



and the Chuckchees, their mode of life, habits 

 and manners, and religion, which are rich in 

 incidental and personal sketches, are given 

 in the kindliest of feeling and with delicate 

 humor, and form, perhaps, to general readers, 

 the most interesting part of the book, while 

 they must also rank high as anthropological 

 studies. A prominent object of the voyage 

 was to study the feasibility of opening a 

 commercial highway from Europe to the 

 river-marts of Central and Eastern Siberia, 

 by way of the sea-route which the expedi- 

 tion took. Professor Nordenskiold's esti- 

 mate of the productive capacity of these re- 

 gions of the far Xorth, and of their possible 

 value in the world's economy if they could 

 be brought within reach of the markets, 

 may be a surprise to those who have asso- 

 ciated with Siberia all that is frozen and in- 

 hospitable. " If we take Siberia in its widest 

 sense," he says, "that is to say, if we in- 

 clude under that name not only Siberia 

 proper, but also the parts of High Asia 

 which lie round the sources of the great 

 Siberian rivers, this land may very well be 

 compared in extent, climate, fertility, and 

 ] the possibility of supporting a dense popu- 

 lation, with America north of 40 north lati- 

 tude. Like America, Siberia is occupied in 

 the north by woodless plains. South of this 

 region, where only the hunter, the fisher, 

 and reindeer nomad can find a scanty liveli- 

 hood, there lies a widely extended forest 

 territory, difficult of cultivation, and in its 

 natural conditions, perhaps, somewhat re- 

 sembling Sweden and Finland north of 60 

 or 61 north latitude. South of this wood- 

 ed belt, again, we have, both in Siberia and 

 America, immeasurable stretches of an ex- 

 ceedingly fertile soil, of whose power to re- 

 pay the toil of the cultivator, the grain ex- 

 ports during recent years from the frontier 

 lands between the United States and Can- 

 ada have afforded so striking evidence. 

 There is, however, this dissimilarity between 

 Siberia and America, that, while the prod- 

 ucts of the soil in America may be carried 

 easily and cheaply to the harbors of the At- 

 lantic and Pacific, the best part of Siberia, 

 that which lies around the upper part of the 

 courses of the Irtish, Obi, and Yenisei, is 

 shut out from the great oceans of the world 

 by immense tracts lying in front of it, and 

 the great rivers which in Siberia cross the 



