In spite of the disastrous loss of his reindeer and the depleted state of his stores and provisions, Nordenskjöld attempted his northern journey the following spring. At Seven Islands he was stopped by the ice, but in spite of this disappointment he concluded to visit North East Land for the purpose of geographical research. A journey of five days over impassable hummocks resulted in his making Cape Platen—and later Otter Island. The increased dangers of travel and the presence of water holes determined him to abandon the coast route and strike across the inland ice. This arduous journey was over hard-packed blinding white snow, “glazed and polished,” he writes, “so that we might have thought ourselves to be advancing over an unsurpassably faultless and spotless floor of white marble.” Blinding storms, blizzards, or ice fogs, marked each step of their fifteen days’ journey. Snow bridges covered treacherous chasms, some of which were forty feet in depth. On June 15, they descended into Hinlopen Strait at Wahlenberg Bay, and finally the party reached Mussel Bay after an absence of sixty days. In the early summer, they had the good fortune to be visited by Mr. Leigh Smith, the veteran Arctic navigator and scientist, in his private yacht _Diana_, through whose generosity the expedition was liberally supplied with fresh provisions, which removed the pending anxiety for the future. [Sidenote: _VOYAGE OF THE “PROVEN”_] In 1875 Nordenskjöld turned his attention to the possibility of navigating the seas along the northern coast of Siberia. This route had already been opened by Captain Wiggins of Sunderland, who in 1874, 1875, and 1876, opened the way to trade between Europe and the mouth of the Yenisei River. Nordenskjöld sailed from Tromsoe, in the _Proven_, June, 1875, and successfully navigating the Kara Sea reached an excellent harbour on the eastern side of the mouth of the Yenisei, to which he gave the name of Port Dickson, in honour of Mr. Oscar Dickson, of Gothenburg, for many years the liberal supporter of the Swedish expeditions. To demonstrate that the Kara Sea had not been more free of ice than usual in the summer of 1875 and that the route would be practicable another season, Nordenskjöld repeated his voyage in the _Ymer_ the following year. His long Arctic experience had by this time convinced him of the feasibility of the northeast passage. To demonstrate this conviction, he enlisted the patronage of the king of Sweden, Mr. Oscar Dickson, and Mr. Sibiriakoff, a Siberian proprietor of vast wealth, and the result was the purchase of the _Vega_, which was liberally equipped for a successful expedition. The Vega had been used for whale-fishing in the north polar sea, her register was three hundred and fifty-seven tons gross, or two hundred and ninety-nine net. Her dimensions were as follows:—