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Rh productiveness of an immense region hitherto supposed to be consigned to the dominion of ice, can not as yet be adequately estimated.

The value of his work was appreciated by the people with whom he came in contact during the course of the voyage. On the arrival of the expedition of 1875 at the Lena, the Dolgans at that remote spot on the border of the tundra, "when they understood clearly that we had come to them not as brandy-sellers or fish-buyers from the south, but from the north, from the ocean, went into complete ecstasies .... At Dudino, also, the priests living there held a thanksgiving service for our happy arrival thither." The voyage home, around the Pacific coast and by the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal, was marked by a series of festivities given at every point where the Vega touched. At Yeddo the navigators were greeted with deputations, bearing addresses of welcome and invitations, and were given a lunch with the Mikado, and a special audience with his Majesty. Similar scenes were repeated, with such variations as circumstances made appropriate, at Hong-Kong, Cairo, Naples, Lisbon, Paris, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. At Naples, the expedition was welcomed back to Europe by the representative of King Oscar of Sweden, who also conferred Swedish decorations on Baron Nordenskiöld and Lieutenant Palander; an Italian officer came down from Turin commissioned by the Government, and bearing the welcomes of several municipalities and scientific societies, with Italian orders for the men of the Vega. At Lisbon, in addition to the usual audiences and receptions, the Portuguese Chamber of Deputies voted a welcome and a congratulatory address. Circumstances prevented the public demonstrations which had been arranged for in England from being held, but the visit of Nordenskiöld and Palander to London was made pleasant by the hospitality of the most distinguished scientific men of the kingdom. At Paris a public reception was given by the Geographical Society; the commanders' and officers' insignia of the Legion of Honor were conferred by the Minister of Education, at a meeting of the delegates of twenty-eight learned societies held in the Sorbonne; a welcome was given by the Institute followed by a festive reception by the Municipal Council; numerous dinners were eaten, and medals were liberally distributed. Invitations to Holland and Belgium had to be declined "from want of time and strength to take part in more festivities." The entrance to Stockholm was made through a thick fleet of excursion-steamers gayly decorated, and under a brilliant illumination of the city; and, after the first enthusiastic welcomes, "fête followed fête for several weeks." Writing of this expedition, Dr. Karl Müller says, in "Die Natur," that "among the most recent voyages none has been so splendidly planned, none undertaken with such noble means and pursued with such eminent scientific success as the circumnavigation of Europe and Asia by Nordenskiöld