Mr. Mickley set sail on the 5th of June, 1869, being at that time a few months past his seventieth year.  He remained abroad for three years, visiting every country in Europe, ascending the Nile to the first cataract, passing through the Suez Canal, and across a portion of Asia Minor and Palestine.  He made two trips to Northern Sweden to behold the spectacle of the midnight sun.  Being a week too late on the first season, he tried it again the following year.  Passing through the entire length of the Gulf of Bothnia, and ascending the Tornea River, he entered Lapland, crossing the Arctic circle and penetrating the Arctic zone in a sledge-journey of seventy miles.  The indomitable old traveller pushed on until he reached a small lumber-village named Pajala.  On the night of June 23, 1871, crossing the river with a small party of Swedes and Finns, he ascended Mount Avasaxa, in Finland.  At this altitude, he says, “the sky happened to be clear in the direction of the sun, and he shone in all his glory as the clock struck twelve.”

During this prolonged absence he visited almost every considerable town in Germany, Holland, Italy, and England.  The instant that he arrived at a town, he seemed to know the shortest cut to its museum.  If there was an antiquarian in the place, he knew of it beforehand, and hastened either to make or renew an acquaintance.  In the larger cities he was surrounded by these people, and he expressed unaffected surprise and pleasure at their attentions.  He made visits of inspection to nearly every mint in Europe, having been commissioned by the Philadelphia Mint to make purchases of rare coins for its cabinet.  Here the old passion appears to have blazed up again for a little while.  It was an entire surprise to his family to discover among his possessions at his death the nucleus of a new collection, which was sold for about two thousand dollars.

Mr. Mickley made at this period some valued acquaintances.  Among these was the Italian composer Mercadante.  At the time of Mickley’s visit, in April, 1870, the composer, who was also president of the Conservatoire in Naples, had been blind for eight years.  “The old gentleman,” says Mickley (who, by the way, was only two years his junior), “held out his hand and bade me welcome.  I told him it would be a lasting pleasure to have shaken hands with so highly distinguished a man, whose name had long since been favorably known in America.  At this his face brightened; he arose from the sofa, shook my hand cordially, wishing me health, happiness, and a safe voyage.”  Later, at Brussels, he called on M. Fetiss, the famous French musical critic and biographer.  At that time, in his eighty-eighth year, Fetis was a fugitive from Paris, owing to the troubles of the Franco-Prussian war.  Mr. Mickley’s picture of the veteran litterateur and critic is an engaging one.  He says, “Considering his great age, Mr. Fetis is very active.  He climbed up the stepladder to get books and to show me such