2S THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



more than one is of sufficient weight and importance to lead to 

 such an expedition as the present. I may be permitted here 

 to refer to only a few of these. 



If we except that part of the Kara Sea which, has been 

 surveyed by the two last Swedish expeditions, we have for the 

 present no knowledge of the vegetable and animal life in the 

 sea which washes the north coast of Siberia. Quite certainly we 

 shall here, in opposition to what has been hitherto supposed, 

 meet with the same abundance of animals and plants as in the 

 sea round Spitzbergen. In the Siberian Polar sea, the animal 

 and vegetable types, so far as we can judge beforehand, exclusively 

 consist of survivals from the glacial period, which next preceded 

 the present, which is not the case in the Polar Sea, where the 

 Gulf Stream distributes its waters, and whither it thus carries 

 types from more southerly regions. But a complete and exact 

 knowledge of which animal types are of glacial, and which of 

 Atlantic origin, is of the greatest importance, not only for zoology 

 and the geography of animals, but also for the geology of Scan- 

 dinavia, and especially for the knowledge of our loose earthy layers. 



Few scientific discoveries have so powerfully captivated the 

 interest, both of the learned and unlearned, as that of the colossal 

 remains of elephants, sometimes well preserved, with flesh and 

 hair, in the frozen soil of Siberia. Such discoveries have more 

 than once formed the object of scientific expeditions, and care- 

 ful researches by eminent men ; but there is still much that is 

 enigmatical with respect to a number of circumstances connected 

 with the mammoth period of Siberia, which i^crhaps was con- 

 temporaneous with our glacial period. Specially is our know- 

 ledge of the animal and vegetable types, which lived contem- 

 poraneously with the mammoth, exceedingly incomplete, although 

 we know that in the northernmost parts of Siberia, which are 

 also most inaccessible from land, there are small hills covered 

 with the bones of the mammoth and other contemporaneous 

 animals, and that there is found everywhere in that region so- 

 called Noah's wood, that is to say, half-petrified or carbonised 

 vegetable remains from several different geological periods. 



Taking a general view of the subject, we see that an 

 investigation, as complete as possible, of the geology of the 

 Polar countries, so difficult of access, is a condition indis- 

 pensable to a knowledge of the former history of our globe. In 

 order to prove this I need only point to the epoch-making 

 influence which has been exerted on geological theories by the 

 discovery, in the rocks and earthy layers of the Polar countries, 

 of beautiful fossil plants from widely separated geological 

 periods. In this field too our expedition to the north coast of 

 Siberia ought to expect to reap abundant harvests. There are 

 besides to be found in Siberia, strata which have been deposited 



