National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

servations; the keeping of a meteorological journal; in inhabited regions the questioning of the population concerning the geography of the country, its products, commerce, roads and other details; the measuring of altitudes with aneroid and hypsometer; and finally, the photographing and drawing of panoramas, landscapes, temples, racial types and so on.

The scientific results that I had collected on the three above-mentioned expeditions, as well as the observations I had made, were published in the following four works:

I. Die geographisch-wissenscha f tlichen Ergebnisse meiner Reisen in Zentralasien, Petermanns Mitteilungen, Ergänzungsband XXVIII; mit 6 Karten in I: i,000,000 von Dr BRUNO HASSENSTEIN, Gotha 190o.

2.  Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia and Tibet; 6 volumes and 2 volumes of maps, Stockholm 19o4—o8.

3.  Southern Tibet; 9 volumes text and 2 volumes Maps and Panoramas, Stockholm 1917-22.

4.  Eine Routenau f nahme durch Ost-Persien; 2 Bde Text and 1 Bd Atlas, Stockholm 1918-27.

In the course of these lonely journeys the wish grew stronger and stronger upon me some time to have an opportunity of leading an expedition on a large scale and with academically trained experts in different branches of science to just these regions that I had myself visited and to other little known parts of Central Asia.

When, therefore, in 1926 I saw a possibility of getting financial support for a new expedition to Asia I made up my mind at the outset to take with me young Swedish specialists who could each work at his own subject in the interior of Asia.

In the first chapter of the present work I have given an account of the origin and development of the new great expedition. I myself left Stockholm on October 26th 1926, travelling through Siberia to Peking, which became and remained throughout our chief headquarters. The expedition was wound up on my return home to Stockholm on April 15th 1935.

In the summer of 1935 the Swedish participants in the expedition assembled in my home to discuss the publication of the results obtained and the sum that would be required for this end. We intended to submit an application to the Government, hoping to obtain what we should need in the form of a state grant. According to our agreement with the committee of learned Chinese who had been looking after our interests in Peking, the projected monographs on palaeontology and prehistorical archaeology were to be published in the journal Palaeontologia Sinica, edited in China, while all our other works were to be printed and published in Stockholm under the general title: Reports from the Scientific Expedition to the North-Western Provinces of China under the Leadership of Dr Sven Hedin — The Sino-Swedish Expedition. In this series, which was calculated to comprise fifty-five volumes, were to be included also the works intended for Palaeontologia Sinica.

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