6 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



the north coast of Asia the Swedish Arctic Expe- 

 dition of 1878. Of its equipment and voyage I will 

 now give some account. 



When Professor A. E. Xordenskiold, during the 

 years 1875-76, crossed without difficulty the Kara 

 Sea, which had hitherto been regarded as unnavi- 

 gable, and penetrated to the mouth of the Yenisei 

 River, which in the former year he sailed up, return- 

 ing home overland by Siberia, it occurred to him 

 that, with a good steamer, one could sail still far- 

 ther east along the north coast of Siberia to Behring 

 Strait. In the programme which Professor Norden- 

 skibld drew out for the promotion of an expedition 

 with the object of sailing through the Xorth-east 

 Passage, he mentions as ground for the possibility 

 of such a voyage, among other reasons, that the 

 warm current which is formed by Siberia's many 

 and powerful rivers, and the direction of which, by 

 reason of the earth's revolution, ought to be from 

 west to east, would be so strong, and would so heat 

 up the water lying nearest the coast, that a navigable 

 stream must be found there during the last summer 

 months namely, August and September. This 

 opinion has now proved perfectly correct. Sup- 

 ported by the results of the successful voyages of 

 1875-76, and the opinion just mentioned, Professor 

 Ifordenskiold succeeded in interesting his Majesty 

 the King of Sweden, Mr Oscar Dickson, merchant, 

 and Mr Alexander Sibirikoff, a Russian mine-owner, 



