664 Recent Literature. [August, 



have secured the positions for men of the same type as those 

 that now rest from their labors. At the same time one of our 

 most able scientists applied for another vacant position. His ser- 

 vices were declined without reasonable explanation. One of the 

 deceased curators held also the position of vice-president. The 

 officering of the academy with wealthy gentlemen of leisure not 

 having proven very profitable to the treasury, a scientific man 

 was selected to fill the vacant vice-presidency. We think it un- 

 fortunate, however, that the gentleman so honored should be an 

 active opponent of modern scientific thought, on the question of 

 evolution. So much for the new administration of the academy, 

 of which the friends of progress had reason to expect better things. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



Nordenskiold's Voyage of the Vega. 1 — This record of the 

 expedition which had the good fortune to accomplish the North- 

 east passage probably led to the ill-fated Jeannette expedition; at 

 any rate the narrative before us will be read by thousands who 

 have followed with so much interest the track of the Jeannette, 

 and have traced the wanderings of the unfortunate Lieut. De 

 Long and his party to the place of their sufferings and death 

 near the mouth of the Lena. As a contribution to geographical 

 science, this is a work of the first magnitude, as it not only de- 

 scribes the first successful voyage around Northern Europe and 

 Asia, from Stockholm to Bering straits and thence round the 

 continent to the original point of departure, but the English- 

 reading public have for the first time, in this translation, a clear 

 account of the vast treeless low plains or tundras of Siberia, es- 

 pecially the region beyond the mouth of the Yenisej, and of the 

 two races, the Samoyeds to the west, and the Chukchis to the east 

 which roam over these barrens. We also have a clear picture of 

 the vegetable and especially the animal life, both terrestrial and 

 marine, of this little known region. There is not a man living 

 better qualified to accomplish this voyage and to report upon the 

 results, than Professor, now Baron Nordenskiold. In 1868 he 

 went to Spitzbergen, in 1870 to Greenland, where he made valu- 

 able observations on the interior ice of that country, which are in 

 part recorded in this volume; in 1872-73 he revisited Spitzbergen, 

 wintering there, and in 1875 and 1876 he made a voyage to the 

 Yenisej river, and thus acquired the knowledge and experience in 

 Arctic travel which he used so successfully in the crowning ex- 

 ploration which has given him a world-wide fame. As a geolo- 

 gist as well as geographer, Nordenski61d had already acquired 

 a European reputation, and the staff of naturalists (Drs. Kjellman 



I'Tke Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe. With a historical review of 

 previous journeys along the north coast of the old world 



Co. 8vo, pp. 756. 



