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
Edge of the World: Ross Island Antarctica: A Personal and Historical Narrative.
- Antarctic Reading: General
Neider tells much of the history of Antarctic exploration by focusing on the geographic area of Ross Island and the Ross Sea. The book has a good series of maps which helped me understand what I have often found a confusing place. The book itself is highly derivative, including long passages quoted from some very familiar works of the explorers, from Ross onwards, including Scott and Shackleton, but it also recounts the author’s own experiences and near disasters on his Deep Freeze expeditions to McMurdo and travels elsewhere in Antarctica.
A Voyage Round the World, in His Britannic Majesty’s Sloop, Resolution, Commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the Years 1772, 3, 4, and 5.
- 1772-75 British Naval Expedition–Second Voyage (Captain James Cook aboard the Resolution).
- “Discovery” of Antarctica.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
This is the first appearance of Forster’s volumes. For a modern edition and further transcripts, see the Hakluyt Society edition below.
A General History of the Pyrates, from Their First Rise and Settlement in the Island of Providence, to the Present Time. With the Remarkable Actions and Adventures of the Two Female Pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny….
- Arctic Reading: General
Usually attributed to Daniel Defoe.
Climbing the Pole: Edmund Hillary & the Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1955-1958.
- 1955-58 TAE: Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Fuchs and Hillary).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
An excellent book which skewers Hillary for his disingenuous claim that his trip to the South Pole, upstaging Vivian Fuchs, was a spur of the moment decision, while convincingly documenting that it was Hillary’s intent from the outset of his involvement with TAE.
Elephant Island: An Antarctic Expedition.
- 1976-77 British Elephant Island Expedition.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
This was a BAS sponsored survey of the birdlife of the Elephant Island group of islands of the South Shetlands. Despite a detailed listing of all supplies and equipment for the expedition, there is no mention of books or reading.
Matthew Flinders Private Journal, from 17 December 1803 at Isle of France to 10 July 1814 at London.
- 1801-03 British Exploring Expedition to Terra Australis (Captain Matthew Flinders aboard Investigator).
- Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
- Maritime Reading
Captain Matthew Flinders RN (16 March 1774 - 19 July 1814) was an English navigator and cartographer, who was the leader of the first circumnavigation of Australia and identified it as a continent. Flinders made three voyages to the southern ocean between 1791 and 1810. In the second voyage, George Bass and Flinders confirmed that Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) was an island. In the third voyage, Flinders circumnavigated the mainland of what was to be called Australia, accompanied by an Aboriginal man, Bungaree. (From ABEBooks description, retrieved 5/14/17, of another Flinders work.
The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, in Search of a Passage to Cathay and India by the North-West, A.D. 1576-78.
- 1576-78 The Baffin Island Voyages of Martin Frobisher.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
p. cii-ciii, re the first voyage: The ship’s library included two works of André Thevet, the French royal geographer, his Cosmography, in French, which had been published only the previous year, and his Singularités de l’Amérique, both in French and in the English translation of 1568, by Thomas Hackett, under the title The New found World or Antarctike. It included William Cunningham’s Cosmographical Glasse, published in 1559, which, to quote Professor Taylor, ‘contains little of purely geographical interest, but is notable for its exposition and illustration of the method of survey by triangulation….’ This volume and Dr Record’s Castle of Knowledge, 1556 (‘containing the explication of the sphere’), which they also took along, ‘were certainly adequate reference books for such astronomy and mathematical geography as was necessary to understand the principles of these various instruments’ (i.e. Cole’s instruments). As they took Medina’s Arte de Naviguar in the original it is to be presumed that the Master could read Spanish. The only English work included was Mandeville, ‘presumably for the sake of its account of the Far East, which was the ultimate goal of the expedition’. They also took ‘a Bible Englishe great volume’, possibly Richard Jugge’s Bishop’s Bible of 1572.
Chances for Arctic Survival: Greely’s Expedition Revisited.
- 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
- Arctic Reading: United States
The caloric requirements of the expedition survivors could not have been met by their available resources exclusive of cannibalism.
A Winter Away from Home: William Barents and the North-East Passage.
- Arctic Reading: Russia
A rather homey account of Berents 3rd voyage, its wintering in ice haven, and its eventual discovery. Last chapter on Berent’s successors is particularly well done.
This Blessed Wilderness: Archibald McDonald’s Letters from the Columbia, 1822-44.
- Hudson's Bay Company.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
McDonald was a chief trader in the Pacific Northwest for the HBC just after it had merged with the North West Company in 1821.
Deep Freeze I and Deep Freeze II, 1955-1957: A Memoir.
- 1957- Operation Deep Freeze.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
McCormick was a Seabee who worked on projects at both McMurdo and South Pole.
A Letter to the President and Council of the Royal Geographical Society on Antarctic Discovery.
- 1838-42 U.S. Exploring Expedition (Wilkes).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
An anonymous response to news of US plans for the Wilkes expedition.
Minutes of Council Northern Department of Rupert Land, 1821-31….
- Arctic Reading: Canada
p. 60, minutes of July 5, 1823, minutes of Council: 153. That for the more effectual civilization and moral improvement of the families attached to the different establishments and the Indians—Every Sunday when circumstances permit, divine Service be publickly read with becoming solemnity…., at which ever man woman and child resident must attend, together with such of the Indians who may be at hand… 154. That for this purpose, the requisite supply of Religious Books be imported by and at the expense of the Company, to consist of Books of Common Prayer of Sermons & Bibles”—also sermons in French for Canadians. [An item in 1824 added the urging of Parents to teach A.B.C. Catechism. Similar entries appeared in the next four years. See also pages 121, 135, 174, 201, and 230-31.]
At Sea with the Scientifics: The Challenger Letters of Joseph Matkin.
- 1872-76 Challenger Expedition of Natural History (George Nares and Frank Thompson).
- Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
- Maritime Reading
p. 17, Introduction: Books and newspapers were no doubt available in the ship’s library, which during a portion of the voyage was in the charge of Matkin’s immediate supervisor, the ship’s steward. In addition, a special collection of scientific and travel books was taken aboard explicitly for the expedition (see Appendix E), although these were probably reserved for the use of the scientific staff and may not have been readily available to Matkin. It is also possible that bulletin’s describing the ship’s ports of call were posted for the crew’s edification. Finally, Matkin himself on more than one occasion mentions visiting a library ashore.