In 1902, the Norwegian Professor Kristian Birkeland organized a large expedition to the Arctic for studies of aurora borealis, terrestrial magnetism and cirrus clouds. He established four stations at different locations: in Northern Norway, Novaja Semlja, Iceland, and Spitsbergen, all equipped with a similar set of instruments.

A description of stations and the instruments will be given, discussing how not only the instruments themselves, but also how external equipment, buildings, camp-facilities, as well as the manual work performed by the expedition members all contributed to produce the final results: magnetograms that Birkeland later used to draw his conclusions.

Some of Birkeland’s instruments had been used by earlier expeditions, and became also used by later scientific travellers. It becomes clear, that in this period, instruments were regarded as valuables and investments, which kept its worth and importance during transfer between periods, professors, institutions, and fields of applications.