addresses, and telegrams of welcome, among others from the riksdag of Sweden, the storting of Norway, and the principal towns of Norway and Finland, from the student corps at Upsala and Helsingborg, from the St. Petersburg Geographical Society, from women in Northern Russia (the address accompanied by a laurel wreath in silver), &c. In a word, the Stockholm fêtes formed the climax of the remarkable triumphal procession from Japan to Stockholm, which stands unique in the history of festivities. Even after the Expedition was broken up in Stockholm, and the Vega had sailed on the 9th May for Karlskrona and Gothenburg, where she was again taken over by the whaling company that previously owned her, the fêtes were repeated at these towns. They commenced anew when the Vega exhibition was opened with appropriate solemnities by His Majesty the King in one of the wings of the Royal Palace, and when some months after I visited Berlin, St. Petersburg, and my old dear fatherland, Finland.
But I may not weary my reader with more notes of festivities. It is my wish yet once again to offer my comrades' and my own thanks for all the honours conferred upon us both in foreign lands and in the Scandinavian North. And in conclusion I wish to express the hope that the way in which the accounts of the successful voyage of the Vega have been received in all countries will give encouragement to new campaigns in the service of research, until the natural history of the Siberian Polar Sea be completely investigated and till the veil that still conceals the enormous areas of land and sea at the north and south poles be completely removed, until man at last knows at least the main features of the whole of the planet which has been assigned him as a dwelling-place in the depths of the universe.
Hearty thanks last of all to my companions during the voyage of the Vega; to her distinguished commander Louis
Palander, her scientific men and officers, her petty officers and crew. Without their courage and the devotion they showed to the task that lay before us, the problem of the North-East Passage would perhaps still be waiting for its solution.
Map of the North Coast of the Old World from Norway to Behring's Straits, with the track of the Vega, constructed from old and recent sources, and from observations made during the Voyage of the Vega, by N. Selander, Captain in the General Staff