ps expect to find in a book such as this accounts of dangers
and misfortunes of a thousand sorts by land and sea. May the
contrast which thus becomes apparent between the difficulties our
predecessors had to contend with and those which the _Vega_ met with
during her voyage incite to new exploratory expeditions to the sea,
which now, for the first time, has been ploughed by the keel of a
sea-going vessel, and conduce to dissipate a prejudice which for
centuries has kept the most extensive cultivable territory on the
globe shut out from the great Oceans of the World.

The work is furnished with numerous maps and illustrations, and is
provided with accurate references to sources of geographical
information. For this I am indebted both to the liberal conception
which my publisher, Herr FRANS BEIJER, formed of the way in which
the work should be executed, and the assistance I have received
while it was passing through the press from Herr E.W. Dahlgren,
amanuensis at the Royal Library, for which it is a pleasant duty
publicly to offer them my hearty thanks.

A.E. NORDENSKIOeLD.

STOCKHOLM, _8th October_, 1881.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

Having been honoured by a request from Baron Nordenskioeld that I
would undertake the translation of the work in which he gives an
account of the voyage by which the North-East Passage was at last
achieved, and Asia and Europe circumnavigated for the first time, I
have done my best to reproduce in English the sense of the Swedish
original as faithfully as possible, and at the same time to preserve
the style of the author as far as the varying idioms of the two
languages permit.

I have to thank two ladies for the help they kindly gave me in
reading proofs, and my friend Herr GUSTAF LINDSTROeM, for valuable
assistance rendered in various ways.

Where not otherwise indicated, temperature is stated in degrees of
the Centigrade or Celsius thermometer. Longitude is invariably
reckoned from the meridian of Greenwich.

Where distance is stated in miles without qualification, the miles
are Swedish (one of which is equal to 6.64 English miles), except at
page 372, Vol. I., where the geographical square miles are German,
each equal to sixteen English geographical square miles.

ALEX. LESLIE.

CHERRYVALE, ABERDEEN,
_24th November_, 1881.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Typographical errors corrected, and alternative spellings noticed
during the preparation of this text has been placed