228 Swedish North-Polar Expedition. 
at their history will convince us how difficult and uncertain the 
attainment of this object is, and how frequently an insignificant 
circumstance has obliged the, in other respects, best planned 
expeditions to return wit out. any scientific result whatever,— 
a contingency which there would have been no reason to appre- 
hend if proper care had been taken in the scientific furnishing 
and manning of the expedition. In order to remove all fear of 
the new Swedish expedition having a result of this kind, it was 
determined that in this, as in the preceding Swedish arctic ex- 
peditions, a continuation, as general as possible, should be made 
of the researches in natural history commenced by their prede- 
cessors. For this purpose the coca was eee by 
the Royal Academy of Science in Stockholm, with a carefully- 
selected and appropriate scientific appara ark va and was accom- 
panied by as numerous a body of pr Sononal scientific men as 
room and circumstances permitted. 
The plan of the journey. was, during the summer and early 
art of the autumn, to pay a visit in the Sofia to Beeren Is- 
fand and § pitalaeeaets and carefully examine both the marine 
and terrestrial fauna of these lands ; their flora, both phanerog- 
amous and cryptogamous, as also their geography and geology. 
It was also intended to make deep soundings, and to take 
meteorological and magnetical observations, &c. A supply of 
coal was to have been deposited by a ship, hired for that es- 
pecial purpose, at some fitting spot on the northwest corner of 
Spitzbergen, which is accessible till late in the season ; which 
tract the Sojia was accordingly to visit during the course of the 
autumn, and whence some of the scientific men were, in the be- 
guming or middle of September, to return in one of ‘the colliers 
orway. The rest were to endeavor, in the Sofia, to make 
their way farther north, and, if necessary, to pass the winter 
(circumstances permi itting) i in some appropriate harbor of the 
rego en Isles, which form the Old World’s most northern archi- 
pe 
he ‘gentlemen who took part in the expedition were :—(e- 
E. Nordenskiéld it Captain,—Fr. W. v. Otter, B 
sw. x. A Pc lendnt — A, L. Palander, R. sw. N. ; ‘Physician, 
. Nystrém ; Natural eee wae Lemstrim ; Zool- 
ogists, A. B. Holmgren, A. J. Mal n, F. A. Smitt ; Bot- 
anists,—Sv. Berggren, Th. M. Fries; ern s —G. Nauckhoff. 
* The London isi contributed to 
‘hie tiatraccamien Hrs Say aise fh and se Freehand of Helsingfors 
t The geographical and byinipephical re niche webs oe te performed by Nor- 
denskiéld, von Otter and Palander. These last—of cit in consequence of their 
office, one was almost always ee took u ves the meteoro- 
logical observations. Nystrém assisted heaeck ts, and also directed his atten- 
tion to the remarkably interesting | hygienistic per ity of these regions. 
