p. 4: About the year 1855 a number of comparatively new books, such as Midshipman Easy, Peter Simple, Jacob Faithful and Frank Mildmay, written by that inimitable author of sea fiction, Captain Marryat, came into the writer's reach and so fas cinated his young mind as to determine an almost unconquerable desire for a sea life. Under this influence, joined to the fact that his great namesake and sponsor, General Winfield Scott—a conspicuous figure in the war of 1812 and that of Mexico in 1847 and 1848—had encouraged the idea of a military life, and had promised his influence to this end when the writer had reached the proper age, a military career with its ambitions and hopes seemed to exclude thoughts of all others. Nothing was known of the limitations to a military life in that time, and no thought of its requirements, its sacrifices, its exposures or its responsibilities could enter a mind filled with dreams and hopes that the time would come in later life when there might be such opportunities as others had had to do some lasting benefit to their home and country.
Forty-Five Years under the Flag
- Arctic Reading: United States
Mark Well the Whale! Long Island Ships to Distant Seas.
- Arctic Reading: United States
A rather light bit of local history re Cold Spring Harbor and whaling out of Long Island, incl. Sag Harbor, and descriptions of voyages and disasters.
Nimrod in the North, Or Hunting and Fishing Adventures in the Arctic Regions.
- Arctic Reading: United States
A general account of hunting and fishing in the Arctic, by the eminent explorer who later rescued what was left of Adolphus Greenly’s expedition. Schwatka’s brief Introduction summarizes his intent:
Melville’s Reading: A Check-List of Books Owned and Borrowed.
- Arctic Reading: United States
Salt Water Bubbles; Or, Life on the Wave.
- Arctic Reading: United States
Stories which originally appeared in the Boston Journal, all dealing with all aspects of nautical life in the American merchant service in the early part of the nineteenth century
The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions.
- Arctic Reading: United States
Stef’s most famous of many books, admired by many, reviled by some including Amundsen, who said it represented a danger in its claim that adoption of Inuit customs would assure safety in the north. The book is prefaced by testimonials from both Peary and Greely.
My Life with the Eskimo.
- Arctic Reading: United States
Stefansson’s account of his first trip to the North in which he begins to develope themes best shown in The Friendly Arctic.
Carpenter on Erebus with James Ross Clark: character used by Peter Delpeut in the film Forbidden Quest
- Arctic Reading: United States
This bound, indexed volume contains the following documents: papers and correspondence dated c.1887-1903 relating the National Antarctic Expedition of the HMS Discovery (1901-1904) including a photograph of the ship; correspondence dated c.1842-1843 by J. Davies, J. Savage and C.J. Sullivan whilst on HMS Erebus and HMS Terror (1839-1843), including some poetry by Sullivan; and a lecture (original manuscript and typed transcript) given by J.D. Hooker on this expedition at the Royal Institution of South Wales, Swansea on 17 June 1846.
Scarcity of Seamen.
- Arctic Reading: United States
This 32-page pamphlet joins the interests of the needs of American commerce with the concerns of US seamen’s missionary activities in behalf of their moral probity.
Obituary: Vilhjalmur Stefansson 1879-1962.
- Arctic Reading: United States
The polar collection that Stef assembled in his later years was initiated by a gift to him of three hundred books by the American Geographical Society. By now the collection, the property of Dartmouth College, numbers some twenty-five thousand bound volumes and forty-five thousand manuscripts, pamphlets, and the like. His widow, the former Evelyn Schwartz Baird, is still its able librarian, and until the end Stef could be seen quietly at work in a corner of the stacks that hold this vast assemblage of polar information.
Towards the Poles.
- Arctic Reading: United States
A fascinating harbinger of U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (1957-58). One could only wish, sixty years later, that the Navy had distributed this work widely among its officers and men to help them understand what they were dealing with. The work consists of a series of timelines of polar expeditions, including in addition to the introductory chronologies, other sections on the Franklin Search, the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage. Part II includes two chapters on Antarctica, the second another timeline. Appendices include an Arctic index, a select bibliography, and a glossary.
Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska, Formerly Russian America—Now Ceded to the United States—and in Other Parts of the North Pacific.
- Arctic Reading: United States
p. 22: Enroute from England to Vancouver in June 1862 viâ the Horn on a steamer called Tynemouth: On board were some three hundred passengers, two-thirds of whom showed a total loss of dignity and self-respect during these early days, and made our vessel much resemble a floating hospital. But there is an end to all things; and by the time we reached the tropics, our friends had recovered their appetites, and, clad in light attire, lounged, smoking, chatting, and reading under the awnings, giving our decks the appearance of a nautical picnic. Our passengers were a study in themselves. They included a number of young men, much too large a proportion of whom .had apparently no profession, business, or definite aim in life, to auger well for their future career in a new country.
Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814, or the First American Settlement of the Pacific.
- 1811-1814 US Voyage to Northwest Coast of America and America’s First American Settlement.
- Arctic Reading: United States
p. 5-7, in Preface to Second Edition: Without disparagement of Mr. Irving ’s literary fame, I may venture to say that I found in his work inaccuracies, misstatements (unintentional of course), and a want of chronological order, which struck forcibly one so familiar with the events themselves. I thought I could show or rather that my simple narration, of itself, plainly discovered that some of the young men embarked in that expedition (which founded our Pacific empire), did not merit the ridicule and contempt which Captain T horn attempted to
A Narrative of Four Voyages, to the South Sea, North and South Pacific Ocean…and Antarctic Ocean. From the Year 1822 to 1831
- 1822-31 Four US Voyages to South and North Pacific Seas and Antarctica (Capt. Benjamin Morrell aboard Various Ships).
- Arctic Reading: United States
Morrell opens the work with a brief sketch of his own life, eldest son of a Stonington ship-builder, born in 1795 at Rye, NY. His merchant service seems to have taken him throughout the world.
Narrative of a Voyage to the Ethiopic and South Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Chinese Sea, North and South Pacific Ocean, in the Yeas 1829, 1830, 1831.
- 1822-31 Four US Voyages to South and North Pacific Seas and Antarctica (Capt. Benjamin Morrell aboard Various Ships).
- Arctic Reading: United States
Mrs. Morrell followed her husband’s larger and multi-voyage 1832 narrative by only one year, and was considerably more successful with her account of the last of her husband’s voyages. No doubt its greater appeal lay in the unusual phenomenon of a woman’s account of such a voyage. The pair deserve a dual biography.