INTRODUCTION. 



The voyage, which it is my purpose to sketch in this book, 

 owed its origin to two preceding expeditions from Sweden to the 

 western part of the Siberian Polar Sea, in the course of which 

 I reached the mouth of the Yenisej, the first time in 1875 in 

 a walrus-hunting sloop, the Proeven, and the second time in 

 1876 in a steamer, the Ymer. 



After my return from the latter voyage, I came to the conclu- 

 sion, that, on the ground of the experience thereby gained, and 

 of the knowledge which, under the light of that experience, it 

 was possible to obtain from old, especially from Russian, explora- 

 tions of the north coast of Asia, I was warranted in asserting 

 that the open navigable water, which two years in succession 

 had carried me across the Kara Sea, formerly of so bad repute, 

 to the mouth of the Yenisej, extended in all probability as far 

 as Behring's Straits, and that a circumnavigation of the old 

 world was thus within the bounds of possibility. 



It was natural that I should endeavour to take advantage 

 of the opportunity for making new and important discoveries 

 which thus presented itself An opportunity had arisen for 

 solving a geographical problem — the forcing a north-east passage 

 to China and Japan — which for more than three hundred years 

 had been a subject of competition between the world's fore- 

 most commercial states and most daring navigators, and which, 



B 



