PREFACE. 
JT may poiTibly excite curiofity to know, why a native of Italy, 
a country abounding in all the beauties of nature, and the 
fined productions of art, fliould voluntarily undergo the danger 
and fatigue of vifiting the regions of the ArCtic Circle. 
He promifed to himfelf, and he was not difappointed, much 
gratification from contrafting the wild grandeur and fimplicity 
of the North, with the luxuriance, the finding afpedt, and the re¬ 
finements of his own country. He was willing to exchange, for 
a time, the beauties of both nature and art, for the novelty, the 
fublimity, and the rude magnificence of the northern climates. 
Nor was it probable that fuch a contrafted lbene would prove 
barren of inftrudtion, or be deftitute of amufement. There is no 
people fo far advanced in civilization, or fo highly cultivated, who 
may not be able to derive fome advantage from being acquainted 
with the arts and fciences of other nations, even of fuch as are 
the moft barbarous. The human underfiranding is benefited by 
communication, 
