Explorers Club Archives II

  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, EC2007-07 [Not all of these files have been carefully reviewed and some await further inspection.]

The Tactless Philosopher: Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798).

Hoare, Michael E. Melbourne, Aus.: Hawthorn Press, 1976.
  • 1772-75 British Naval Expedition–Second Voyage (Captain James Cook aboard the Resolution).
  • “Discovery” of Antarctica.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A straightforward biography of Forster, the Anglo-German naturalist who replaced Sir Joseph Banks on Cook’s Second Voyage (1772-75), along with his son George.

An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and Successively Performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour: Drawn up from the Journals which were Kept by the Several Commanders, and from the Papers of Joseph Banks, esq.; by John Hawkesworth … Illustrated with Cuts, and a Great Variety of Charts and Maps.

Hawkesworth, John. Three volumes.London: Strahan & Cadell, 1773.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Hawkesworth’s introduction (p. xix) has a brief but controversial discussion of Providence and natural events. p. xx: “it will always be found that Providence interposes too late, and only moderates the mischief which it might have prevented.” In final passage he says he honors God but doubts his intervention in natural events.

The Autobiography of a Seaman.

Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald. (London: Richard Bentley, 1872).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

This author is one very aristocratic sailor who had his troubles with the Royal Navy and the British government in the early nineteenth century. Suffice it to say that this is not a voice from the forecastle, but of petulant complaints concerning the “injustice and folly” of the government court (p. 493). There is nothing I could find in this book about polar reading, or any reading at all.

Libris Polaris.

Jones, Bassett. Columbia University Library Collection. Notes.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Collection of Bassett Jones at Columbia University Library. [MS CollLibris Polaris]. Bassett Jones was a collector and member of both Explorers and Grolier Clubs. He and Stefansson did a major exhibit of polar exploration literature in English at the Grolier Club in January 1932. In that year Jones was also Acting President of the Eplorers Club. He then lived at 1088 Park Avenue. Bartlett in the National Geographic says: “ We stopped for a couple of days at Nantucket, and there, through the generosity of Bassett Jones, electrical engineer in charge of the lighting at the New York World’s Fair, we acquired an otter trawl, which later enabled us to bring back a wealth of specimens from the floor of the ocean.”

No Man’s Land: A History of Spitsbergen from its Discovery in 1596 to the Beginning of the Scientific Exploration of the Country.

Conway, Sir William Martin. Cambridge: University Press, 1906.
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

A general history of the archipelago, based on Conway’s studies and his earlier visits. Although he reviews a number of books in preparation for his manuscript, he does not here reveal the thoughtful reader who appears in his earlier narratves

International Polar Expedition. Report on the Proceedings of the United States Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay, Grinnell Land.

Greely, Adolphus Washington. Two volumes.Washington: Government Printing Office, 1888. [U.S. House of Representatives. 49 Congress, 1 Session. Misc. Doc. No. 393].
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Greely’s official report is only 93 pages and records, mostly in monthly segments, the chief events of the expedition. It does not amplify what he already had published more expansively in his Three Years of Arctic Service (1886), but continues the defensiveness over some disputed actions. He is always concerned about the safety of the scientific records and other journals prepared by the expedition.

Sledge: The British Trans-Greenland Expedition 1934.

Lindsay, Martin. London: Cassell, 1935.
  • 1934 British Trans-Greenland Expedition (commanded by Martin Lindsay).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

An account of the traversal of the Greenland Ice-Cap, between Jakobshaven, near Disco Island on the west coast, and Angmagssalik on the east coast.

The Bibliographical Miscellany.

Petheram, John, ed. 5 numbers, all printed. London: John Russell Smith, 1859.
  • 1612-13 British North-West Passage Expedition (led by Sir Thomas Button, aboard Resolution and Discovery).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

First three numbers deal with the North-West Passage and the 1612 voyage of Sir Thomas Button.

Kah´Da: Life of a North Greenland Eskimo Boy.

MacMillan, Donald Baxter. Garden City. NY: Doubleday, 1930.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A juvenile about the Smith Sound Eskimos, with whom MacMillan had lived for a total of six years.

Tragedy and Triumph: the Journals of Captain R. F. Scott’s Last Polar Expedition.

Scott, Robert Falcon. New York: Konecky & Konecky [n.d.].
  • 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

These journals include rather little on reading. The expedition’s lecture series implies a good library available to the lecturers, all 13 of them. Subjects included mostly scientific matter: parasitology, scurvy, polar clothing, sledging diets, motor sledges, geology, volcanoes, surveying, Lololand, biology, horse management, Burma, China, India, Japan; Scott himself lectured on the icebarrier and inland ice, and on plays for the Southern Journey. Other topics were coronas, hales, rainbows and auroras, general meteorology, the Beardmore glacier, physiography, flying birds, penguins, ice problems, radium, and the constitution of matter. [see index p. 511-12]

Antarctic Command

Ronne, Finne. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961.
  • 1957-58 Operation Deep Freeze I. Ellesworth Station. (Finn Ronne).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Ronne’s self-justifying and self-pitying account of his disastrous command of the IGY expedition at Ellsworth Station in the Weddell Sea in 1956-58, mainly acknowledging the extreme tensions between military and civilian scientists.

Arctic Explorations and Discoveries during the Nineteenth Century. Being Detailed Accounts of the Several Expeditions to the North Seas, both English and American, Conducted by Ross, Parry, Back, Franklin, M’Clure, Dr. Kane, and Others. Including the First Grinnell Expedition….in Search of Sir John Franklin.

Smucker, Samuel Mosheim. New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton & Co., 1858.
  • Arctic Reading: General
 Preview 

Although boredom is something that we have all suffered from at some point in our lives, and has become one of the central preoccupations of our age, very few of us can explain precisely what it is. In this book Lars Svendsen examines the nature of boredom, how it originated, its history, how and why it afflicts us, and why we cannot seem to overcome it by any act of will. A diverse and vague phenomenon, described as anything from 'tame longing without any particular object' (Schopenhauer), 'a bestial and indefinable affliction' (Dostoevsky), to 'time's invasion of your world system' (Joseph Brodsky), boredom allows many interpretations. In exploring these, Lars Svendsen brings together observations from philosophy, literature, psychology, theology and popular culture, examining boredom's pre-Romantic manifestations in medieval torpor, philosophies of the subject from Pascal to Nietzsche, and modern related concepts of alienation and transgression, taking in texts by Samuel Beckett, J. G. Ballard, Andy Warhol and many others. He also puts forward an ethics for boredom, discussing what stance one can adopt towards boredom as well as how one ought not to do so. This book arose from the author's attempt to relax and do nothing. Finding this impossible, he thought it better to do something, so he wrote A Philosophy of Boredom. A witty and entertaining account that considers a serious issue, it will appeal to anyone who has ever felt bored, and wanted to know why.