Recounts importance of maritime power to U.S. for commerce, yielding the North and Arctic to Britain which he says will find the Northwest Passage, and arguing for scientific exploration (p. 22-3) without immediate dividends though the practical benefits will soon follow. His proposal is for a voyage of discovery to the Pacific and Southern Oceans.
In 1827 the House approved a bill for the venture; in 1828 the President approved the bill and some things were done including enlistment of suitable sailors “and orders given to prepare the requisite books and mathematic instruments” (p. 29). But the Senate delayed & the bill was lost. P 32—Reynolds then traveled East Coast seeking info. on the Southern seas from old logbooks, interviews with whalers and sealers etc.
p. 89: Indeed, we do not believe,… that ice is ever formed in the main ocean, at a distance from land. No, not at the Pole itself. [This refers to the North, but for Reynolds southern hemisphere is far more interesting, (with the assumption that the ice is connected to land), as Weddell assumed.]
p. 97: That the ninetieth degree, or the South Pole, may be reached by the navigator, is our deliberate opinion (unless intercepted by land), which all that we have seen and known has tended to confirm.
[The appended documents show the assumption that Reynolds would command the expedition following Presidential approval in July 1838, but then Captain Thomas Ap. C. Jones was given the command before being replaced by Wilkes in 1838.]