CHAP. XX.] 
LONDON. 
451 
l^leasaiit. Palander and I travelled on the night before 
Good Friday to London, where we were received at the railway 
station by the Swedish minister, Count Piper, and a large 
number of our countrymen living in London. Count Piper 
carried me to my future host, the distinguished Secretary of 
the Geographical Society and famous Arctician and geographical 
writer, Clements K. Markham, who did everything to make 
my stay in London as pleasant and instructive as possible. 
Saturday was spent in paying visits. On Easter Sunday Consul- 
General PiCHTER gave a lunch in the Continental Hotel, to 
which a considerable number of Scandinavians and Englishmen 
were invited. The same evening we dined with the famous 
Arctic traveller, Sir Allen Young. On Monday we were 
invited by the Earl of Northbrook, President of the 
Geographical Society,^ to his country seat, Stratton, near Win¬ 
chester. Here we saw the way—an exceedingly quiet one—in 
which an English parliamentary election goes on. The same 
day we paid a visit to Mr. Spottiswoode, the President of the 
Royal Society, at his magnificent country seat, in the neighbour¬ 
hood of London. Here I saw several instructive experiments 
with very large machines for the production of light by 
electric discharges in highly rarified air. Wednesday the 31st, 
grand dinner at the Swedish minister s, and in the evening of the 
same day a Scandinavian fSte in the Freemasons’ Hall, at which 
there were great rejoicings according to old northern usages. 
We started for Paris on the night before the 1st April. We 
went by Boulogne-sur-Mer, whose Chamber of Commerce had 
invited us to a flte to celebrate the first landing of the Vega 
men on the soil of France after the North-east Passage was 
achieved. Several of the authorities of the town and 
1 During our visit to London we had no opportunity of taking part in 
any of the meetings of the Society, but some time after the Society gave 
Palander the Founder’s Gold Medal (I had in 1869 obtained the same 
distinction) and elected me an Honorary Corresponding Member. 
G G 2 
