Among the Magi

Sponholz, Martin. https://www.antarctican.org/memoirs-diaries?rq=sponholz.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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This memoir by Society member Martin Sponholz recounts his experiences at Plateau Station and the Japanese Showa Station in the 1960's. It has never been published, but has appeared on other websites in the past. We thought it deserved a home with the Antarctican Society, with Marty's permission.

The First Crossing of Spitzbergen, Being an Account of an Inland Journey of Exploration and Survey… and of an Almost Complete Circumnavigation of the Main Island…. With Contributions by J. W. Gregory, D.Sc. A. Trevor-Battye, and E. J. Garwood.

Conway, Sir William Martin. London: J. M Dent & Co.; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897.
  • 1896 and 1897 British Exploring Expeditions Crossing Spitzbergen and its Interior (led by Sir William Martin Conway).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
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p. 36-37, describing some passengers on this tour boat: There was a crow's-nest to be fitted up. All sorts of people came to say good-bye—consuls, agents, dealers, and relatives or acquaintances of passengers. The deck was crowded. Glasses clinked. Every one was in the way of every one else, but the sun shone brightly and all were gay. In the midst of the shindy, Gregory digested geological papers from various journals, cross-questioned any one that came handy about Spitsbergen birds or the Norwegian vocabulary, and went on piling up information generally. “You read always,” said the French gentleman to him. “Yes,” was the merry reply; “you see I am young and have a lot to learn.” Garwood was also busy. He started from England with some work on hand still requiring a preface. With this he had been labouring in the intervals of sea-sickness, negative developing, baggage overhauling, and the rest, at odd moments during the voyage. The hour appointed for sailing came, but the preface lingered. Furiously the author worked on amongst teacups and the debris of food. At last the work was done. A wild rush on shore, and the precious document was consigned to the post and all the printer's devils.

Matthew Flinders Private Journal, from 17 December 1803 at Isle of France to 10 July 1814 at London.

Flinders, Matthew. Edited and with an Introduction by Anthony J. Brown and Gillian Dooley. Adelaide, NSW, Australia: Friends of the State Library of South Australia, 2005.
  • 1801-03 British Exploring Expedition to Terra Australis (Captain Matthew Flinders aboard Investigator).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
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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.

In the Lena Delta: A Narrative of the Search for Lieut.-Commander DeLong and His Companions; Followed by an Account of the Greely Relief Expedition, and a Proposed Method of Reaching the North Pole.

Melville, George Wallace. Edited by Melville Philips. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1885.
  • 1879-81 US North Pole Expedition (commanded by George De Long aboard Jeannette).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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This was the crucial expedition in finding the fate of DeLong and the Jeannette.

A Voyage in the South Seas, in the Years 1812, 1813, and 1814. With Particular Details of the Gallipagos and Washington Islands.

Porter, David. London: Richard Phillips& Co., 1823.
  • 1812-1814 American Naval Cruise to the Pacific commanded by David Porter (aboard frigate Essex).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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A one-volume edition of the following year seems to cover the same voyage as the 1822, but it is hard to discover that through the Hathi indexing. It might be worth comparing them for any changes or omissions.

Shackleton Discovery Diaries. Vol. 1 Dec. 1901-1902.

Shackleton, Ernest. SPRI Ms 1537/3/4/1 and 2.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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p. 5, Thursday [Dec] 26th: One of the officers of the “Ringarooraa” sent me Swinburne’s “Songs before Sunrise” and two volumes of the Poems and Ballads, but I don’t think there will be much time to read these during the summer; during the long winter far away from the teeming life of the great world one may calmly criticize his rather erotic lines.

The Resolution Journal of Johann Reinhold Forster, 1772-1775.

Forster, Johann Reinhold. Ed. by Michael E. Hoare. Four volumes. London: Hakluyt Society, 1982.
  • 1772-75 British Naval Expedition–Second Voyage (Captain James Cook aboard the Resolution).
  • “Discovery” of Antarctica.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
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Forster and his father George were the naturalists on Cook’s Second Voyage, aboard Resolution, replacing Sir Joseph Banks who rejected the expedition in a dispute over cabin space, and possibly a mistress. Banks took his library and instruments with him, but the library was somehow replaced by the Forster collection. Anders Sparrman was another scientist who joined the scientific team for the second voyage. The four volumes of Forster’s Journal are studded with references to many books in several languages, mostly dealing with natural history or anthropology (e.g., plant names, the copulation of sea elephants, tattoos and lip piercing, but he quotes Virgil constantly). One may assume with some degree of likelihood that most of the books cited were aboard the ship. Included here are only page numbers of these references. For all the bookish knowledge of the father there is little indication of reading in the Antarctic regions, other than looking up references. [DS]

The Outpost of the Lost: An Arctic Adventure.

Brainard, David L. (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1929.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Mainly Brainard’s diary of the Greely retreat from Fort Conger, starting on August 9, 1883, to the rescue of only six survivors of the twenty-eight men, including Brainard, in June 1884.

Either/Or

Kierkegaard, Søren. Translated by David F. Swenson and Lillian Marin Swenson. Volume I. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959.
  • Arctic Reading: General
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p. 281, in “The Rotation Method” section (p. 279-96): Starting from a principle is affirmed by people of experience to be a very reasonable procedure; I am willing to humor them, and so begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this. The principle possesses the quality of being in the highest degree repellent, an essential requirement in the case of negative principles, which are in the last analysis the principles of all motion. It is not merely repellent, but infinitely forbidding; and whoever has this principle back of him cannot but receive an infinite impetus forward, to help him make new discoveries. For; if my principle is true, one need only consider how ruinous boredom is for humanity, and by properly adjusting the intensity of one’s concentration upon this fundamental truth, attain any desired degree of momentum. Should one wish to attain the maximum momentum, even to the point of almost endangering the driving power, one need only say to oneself: Boredom is the root of all evil. Strange that boredom, in itself so staid and stolid, should have such power to set in motion. The influence it exerts is altogether magical, except it is not the influence of attraction, but of repulsion.

Letterbooks.

Bryant, Henry. APS Mss. Collection 38, Vol. 1.
  • 1891-1920 Robert Peary and the Search for the North Pole.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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January 15, 1903, Bryant to Commander Robert Peary, stating his skepticism toward the Smith Sound route to the North Pole: The chances of failure are too great to warrant further endeavor on the old lines. Suggests repeating the Fram experiment of forcing a ship north of Spitzbergen or better routes. Pledges $2000 to the Peary Arctic Club for this alternate proposal.

Benjamin Leigh Smith: a forgotten pioneer.

Credland, Arthur C. Polar Record 20 (125) May 1980, p. 127-145.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
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Smith lived from 1783 to 1913 and took five important Arctic voyages to Novaya Zemblya, Svalbard, and Franz Josef Land. The last, in Eira, sank in August 1881 near Mys Barentsia in Franz Josef Land.

Mid-Ice: The Story of the Wegener Expedition to Greenland.

Georgi, Johannes. Translation by F. H. Lyon. [Preface by Einar Mikkelsen] London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1934.
  • 1930-31 German Expedition to Greenland (Alfred Wegener).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
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p. xii: It is a human document of importance, which will show coming generations till remote ages what German scientists will dare that they may follow their scientific vocation and do honour to their country.

A Voyage Around the World 1826-1829.

Litke, Frederic. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Kingston, ONT: Limestone Press, 1987.
  • Arctic Reading: Russia
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Trip on Seniavin to survey coast of Kamchatka, the Okhotsk Sea, and the Shantar Islands. Travels from Kronstadt to Portsmouth, Rio, Valparaiso, Sitka, & Kamchatka. Stop in Sitka to observe the Russian colonies there under the Russian-American Company in New Archangel. Baron Wrangell was governor and the fort itself had been rebuilt after being destroyed by the Americans.