"The steamer Vega was built at Bremerhaven in 1872-73, of the best oak, for the share-company 'Ishafvet,' and under special inspection. It has twelve years' first class 3/3 I.I. Veritas, measures 357 register tons gross, or 299 net. It was built and used for whale-fishing in the North Polar Sea, and strengthened in every way necessary and commonly used for that purpose. Besides the usual timbering of oak, the vessel has an ice-skin of greenheart, wherever the ice may be expected to come at the vessel. The ice-skin extends from the neighbourhood of the under chain bolts to within from 1.2 to 1.5 metres of the keel The dimensions are:—
Length of keel ... ... ... 37.6 metres.
Do. over deck ... ... ... 43.4 metres.
Beam extreme ... ... ... 8.4 metres.
Depth of hold ... ... ... 4.6 metres.
"The engine, of sixty horse-power, is on Wolff's plan, with excellent surface condensers. It requires about ten cubic feet of coal per hour. The vessel is fully rigged as a barque, and has pitch pine masts, iron wire rigging, and patent reefing topsails. It sails and manoeuvres uncommonly well, and under sail alone attains a speed of nine to ten knots. During the trial trip the steamer made seven and a half knots, but six to seven knots per hour may be considered the speed under steam. Further, there are on the vessel a powerful steam-winch, a reserve rudder, and a reserve propeller. The vessel is besides provided in the whole of the under hold with iron tanks, so built that they lie close to the vessel's bottom and sides, the tanks thus being capable of offering a powerful resistance in case of ice pressure. They are also serviceable for holding provisions, water, and coal."[3]
We had no reason to take exception to this description,[4] but, in any case, it was necessary for an Arctic campaign, such as that now in question, to make a further inspection of the vessel, to assure ourselves that all its parts were in complete order, to make the alterations in rig, &c., which the altered requirements would render necessary, and finally to arrange the vessel, so that it might house a scientific staff, which, together with the officers, numbered nine persons. This work was done at the Karlskrona naval dockyard, under the direction of Captain Palander. At the same time attention was given to the scientific equipment, principally in Stockholm, where a large number of instruments for physical, astronomical, and geological researches was obtained from the Royal Academy of Sciences.
The dietary during the expedition was fixed upon, partly on the ground of our experience from the wintering of 1872-73, partly under the guidance of a special opinion given with reference to the subject by the distinguished physician who took part in that expedition, Dr. A. Envall. Preserved provisions,[5] butter, flour, &c., were purchased, part at Karlskrona, part in Stockholm and Copenhagen; a portion of pemmican was prepared in Stockholm by Z. Wikström; another portion was purchased in England; fresh ripe potatoes[6] were procured from the Mediterranean, a large quantity of cranberry juice from Finland; preserved cloudberries and clothes of reindeer skins, &c., from Norway, through our agent Ebeltoft, and so on —in a word, nothing was neglected to make the vessel as well equipped as possible for the attainment of the great object in view. What this was may be seen from the following
PLAN OF THE EXPEDITION,
PRESENTED TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY, July 1877.
The exploring expeditions, which, during the recent decades, have gone out from Sweden towards the north, have long ago acquired a truly national importance, through the lively interest that has been taken in them everywhere, beyond, as well as within, the fatherland; through the considerable sums of money that have been spent on them by the State, and above all by private persons; through the practical school they have formed for more than thirty Swedish naturalists; through the important scientific and geographical results they have yielded; and through the material for scientific research, which by them has been collected for the Swedish Riks-Museum, and which has made it, in respect of Arctic natural objects, the richest in the world. To this there come to be added discoveries and investigations which already are, or promise in the future to become, of practical importance; for example, the meteorological and hydrographical work of the expeditions; their comprehensive inquiries regarding the Seal and Whale Fisheries in the Polar Seas; the pointing out of the previously unsuspected richness in fish, of the coasts of Spitzbergen; the discoveries, on Bear Island and Spitzbergen, of considerable strata of coal and phosphatic minerals which are likely to be of great economic importance to neighbouring countries; and, above all, the success of the two last expeditions in reaching the mouths of the large Siberian rivers, navigable to the confines of China—the Obi and Yenisej —whereby a problem in navigation, many centuries old, has at last been solved.
But the very results that have been obtained incite to a continuation, especially as the two last expeditions have opened a new field of inquiry, exceedingly promising in a scientific, and I venture also to say in a practical, point of view, namely, the part of the Polar Sea lying east of the mouth of the Yenisej. Still, even in our days, in the era of steam and the telegraph, there meets us here a territory to be explored, which is new to science, and hitherto untouched. Indeed, the whole of the immense expanse of ocean which stretches over 90 degrees of longitude from the mouth of the Yenisej past Cape Chelyuskin—the Promontorium Tabin of the old geographers—has, if we except voyages in large or small boats along the coast, never yet been ploughed by the keel of any vessel, and never seen the funnel of a steamer.
It was this state of things which led me to attempt to procure funds for an expedition, equipped as completely as possible, both in a scientific and a nautical respect, with a view to investigate the geography, hydrography, and natural history of the North Polar Sea beyond the mouth of the Yenisej, if possible as far as Behring's Straits. It may be affirmed without any danger of exaggeration, that since Cook's famous voyages in the Pacific Ocean, no more promising field of research has lain before any exploring expedition, if only the state of the ice permit a suitable steamer to force a passage in that sea. In order to form a judgment on this point, it may perhaps be necessary to cast a brief glance backwards over the attempts which have been made to penetrate in the direction which the projected expedition is intended to take.