Few sciences perhaps will yield so important practical results as meteorology is likely to do at some future date--a fact, or rather an already partly realised expectation, which has won general recognition, as is shown by the large sums which in all civilised countries have been set apart for establishing meteorological offices and for encouraging meteorological research. But the state of the weather in a country is so dependent on the temperature, wind, pressure of the air, etc., in very remote regions that the laws of the meteorology of a country can only be ascertained by comparing observations from the most distant regions. Several international meteorological enterprises have already been started, and we may almost consider the meteorological institutions of the different countries as separate departments of one and the same office, distributed over the whole world, through whose harmonious co-operation the object in view shall one day be reached. But, beyond the places for which daily series of observations may be obtained, there are regions hundreds of square miles in extent from which no observations, or only scattered ones, are yet to be had, and here notwithstanding we have just the key to many meteorological phenomena, otherwise difficult of explanation, within the civilised countries of Europe. Such a meteorological territory, unknown, but of the greatest importance, is formed by the Polar Sea lying to the north of Siberia, and the land and islands there situated. It is of great importance for the meteorology of Europe and of Sweden to obtain trustworthy accounts of the distribution of the land, of the state of the ice, the pressure of the air, and the temperature in that in these respects little-known part of the globe, and the Swedish expedition will here have a subject for investigation of direct importance for our own country.
To a certain extent the same may be said of the contributions which may be obtained from those regions to our knowledge of terrestrial magnetism, of the aurora, etc. There are, besides, the examination of the flora and fauna in those countries, hitherto unknown in this respect, ethnographical researches, hydrographical work, etc.