INTEODUCTION. 
The voyage, which it is my purpose to sketch in this book^ 
owed its origin to two preceding expeditions from Sweden to the 
western part of the Siberian Polar Sea, in the course of which 
I reached the mouth of the Yenisej, the first time in 1875 in 
a walrus-hunting sloop, the Proeven, and the second time in 
1876 in a steamer, the Ymer. 
After my return from the latter voyage, I came to tlie conclu¬ 
sion, that, on the ground of the experience thereby gained, and 
of the knowledge which, under the light of that experience, it 
was possible to obtain from old, especially from Kussian, explora¬ 
tions of the north coast of Asia, I was warranted in asserting 
that the open navigable water, which two years in succession 
had carried me across the Kara Sea, formerly of so bad repute, 
to the mouth of the Yenisej, extended in all probability as far 
as Behring’s Straits, and that a circumnavigation of the old 
world was thus within the bounds of possibility. 
B 
