The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe
With a Historical Review of Previous Journeys along the North Coast of the Old World

This 1881 account details the flora, fauna, geology and people encountered on the first crossing of the North–East Passage.

Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (Author), Alexander Leslie (Translated by)

9781108049849, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 May 2012

506 pages, 132 b/w illus.
21.6 x 2.9 x 14 cm, 0.64 kg

The Finnish geologist and Arctic explorer A. E. Nordenskiöld (1832–1901) spent much of his life in exile in Sweden, where he was made a baron. He served as Superintendent of the Mineralogical Department of the Swedish Royal Museum, and later became a Member of the Swedish Academy. Following a number of expeditions during the 1860s, he concluded that the North Pole could not be reached by ship, and in 1872 he tried unsuccessfully to reach it overland. A great historian of cartography, he amassed a huge collection of maps, now included in UNESCO's 'Memory of the World' Register. This two-volume work, published in Swedish in 1881, describes his most famous voyage, the first crossing of the North-East Passage. Volume 2 follows the expedition from the Bering Strait to Yokohama in Japan, and the return journey to Sweden, through the India Ocean, the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, in 1879.

11. Hope of release at the New Year
12. The history of the Chukches
13. The development of our knowledge of the north coast of Asia
14. Passage through Behring's Straits
15. The position of Behring Island
16. Arrival at Yokohama
17. Excursion to Asamayama
18. Farewell dinner at Yokohama
19. Hong Kong and Canton
20. The journey home
Index.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]