INTRODUCTION. / 



The discussion with Dr. Peter mann as to whether a 

 larger transport-ship should be chosen or not, led to no 

 satisfactory conclusion. For practical as well as financial 

 reasons he decided in the negative. But on the other 

 side were voices of weight and influence in nautical circles 

 of the North Sea and Baltic coasts, and which must be 

 heard. People thought it right to raise serious objections 

 to the insufficient size of the ship. These, with very great 

 exaggeration, found expression in the daily press, so 

 much so that Captain Koldewey was obliged to inter- 

 fere by letter to the newspapers. In Hamburg one of 

 the prime movers in the undertaking, the director of 

 the North German Marine Observatory, W. v. Freeden, 

 had resolved to form a committee. A number of repre- 

 sentatives of respectable firms, the directors of the 

 Marine and Astronomical Observatories, formed them- 

 selves into the " Hamburg Committee for the Northern 

 Expedition of 1869." On the 23rd of April an appeal 

 followed, in which it was represented that Hamburg 

 had always shown a lively interest in all national 

 questions, and with regard to this undertaking felt it 

 incumbent upon it, remembering its antecedents, to 

 guard its position as the leading seaport of Germany. 

 The Hamburg Committee also declared, in a sitting 

 at which Dr. Petermann and Captain Koldewey were 

 present, for Dr. Petermann's published plan of the 8th 

 of March. By degrees the interest of the nation and 

 the whole of the country began to warm more and more. 

 New committees were formed in Oldenburg, Emden, 

 and Leer, in Rheinhessen (Worms and Oppenheim), at 

 Karlsruhe, Lubeck, Konigsberg, and Rostock. The 

 committee of Bremen, in a letter of the 2nd of May 



