p. 1, col. 2: [no date] Our Wellington correspondent telegraphs that Sir James Hector of the Canadian Palliser expedition in 1857-1859, has sent to the Discovery a large number of scientific works bearing upon New Zealand. The books sent include a complete set (33 volumes) of the transactions of the New Zealand Institute. These books will greatly assist the members of the expedition in their observations and researches.
Discovery press clippings
Probably compiled by Emily Scott, in a volume of mounted clippings [SPRI MSS 735/1] with one loose section of four pages at rear with NZ press coverage of “The Antarctic Expedition. The Arrival of the Discovery.” [off Lyttleton Heads, and Christchurch].
- 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, with Notes of a Sojourn on the Island of Zanzibar. To Which is Appended a Brief History of the Whale Fishery, its Past and Present Condition.
Browne, J. Ross. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1846. [See Pamela Miller below for a lengthy quote from p. 110-11.].
- Whalemen's Reading
Preview
The cruise lasted from 1842 to 1845.
The Hookers of Kew 1785-1911.
Allan, Mea. London: Michael Joseph, 1967.
- Arctic Reading: General
Preview
Joseph Hooker was part of the Erebus and Terror Antarctic expedition led by James Clark Ross, an expedition poorly equipped for scientific investigation.
Storms and Dreams. Louis de Bougainville: Soldier, Explorer, Statesman.
Dunmore, John. (Stroud, Glousc., UK: Nonsuch, 2005).
- Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
- Maritime Reading
Preview
An excellent biography of Bougainville and his various campaigns. Obviously a well-educated aristocrat, Bougainville shows little sign of any reading during his long periods at sea.
Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific; Performed in the Years 1821-22-23, in His Majesty’s Ships Fury and Hecla, Under the Orders of Captain William Edward Parry, R.N/. F.R.S., and Commander of the Expedition.
Parry, William Edward. London: John Murray, 1824.
- 1821–23 Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage (in Fury and Hecla, under William Edward Parry).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Preview
Parry’s second voyage involved two year’s of winterovering in Winter Harbour, including a number of interactions with natives. There is little here on reading,unlike Lyon’s earlier private journal.
I Went to the Soviet Arctic.
Gruber, Ruth. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939.
- 1938 Russian.
- Arctic Reading: Russia
Preview
p. 16-17, for her journey north: Accordingly I packed into one pocket of the duffel bag the Compleat Explorer’s Equipment…. The other pocket was filled with notebooks, typing paper, pencils and a little library of books and newspapers which I would leave with the people who were starving, I was sure, for culture.
To the Arctic: The Story of Northern Exploration from Earliest Times to the Present.
Mirsky, Jeannette. With an Introduction by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. [First published as To the North in 1934.]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.
- Arctic Reading: General
Preview
p. 103, on Parry’s 1819-20 expedition: A school was formed to teach the men to read and write. Captain Sabine edited a weekly, the North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle, for the amusement of the officers, and they in turn amused the men. Fortnightly a farce that had had a successful run in London was given. Christmas was celebrated by a special dinner and an operetta, Northwest Passage. [A facsimile page of the gazette is on p. 102.]
First on the Antarctic Continent, Being an Account of the British Antarctic Expedition 1898-1900
Borchgrevink, Carsten E. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1980 [Reprint 1901].
- 1898–1900 British Antarctic Expedition (Carsten Borchgrevink on Southern Cross).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Borchgrevink comes across as a sanctimonious sycophant, at least at the beginning, full of himself and his role in “the world’s history.” For contrast from an antagonist, see Louis Charles Bernacchi who detested Borchgrevink. Pretty clear that this is one of those self-serving travel accounts which conceals the depths of animosity that developed within his staff.
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.]
Biographical Notes.Feb. 6-1877 to Jan. 24, 1960.
Jones, Bassett. Garnered from his archives at AMNH, the Grolier Club, Columbia University Library, and the Explorers Club. The following notes are by David H. Stam, based on his Grolier Club lecture on Jones in 2007.
- Arctic Reading: General
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Bassett Jones was a consulting engineer who graduated from MIT in 1898, who formed a consulting partnership specializing in elevator and lighting design and installation. He was also a major collector of materials dealing with the polar regions and he and Vilhjalmur Stefansson prepared a major exhibition of their collections at the Grolier Club in 1931-32. He joined the Explorers Club in 1926 when it was on 47 W 76th St. At the time of the exhibition he was living at 1088 Park Avenue and was acting President of the Explorers Club. Not all of his Explorers Club activities were entirely congenial: in April 1933 the NYTimes reported that he was being sued for $50,000 by a former librarian of the Club for asserting that the librarian had sold copies of the Club publication, As Told at the Explorers Club (New York, 1931),for his personal profit. The Times makes no further reference to this slander suit.
New Land: Four Years in the Arctic Regions
Sverdrup, Otto. Translated from the Norwegian by Ethel Harriet Hearn. Two volumes. London: Longmans, Green, 1904.
- Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
Preview
Volume I:
Ice and Esquimaux
Wasson, David A. Atlantic Monthly 14 (Dec. 1864) 728-34; 15 (Jan 1865)39-4; (Feb 1865) 201-12; (April 1865) 437-48; (May 1865) 564-72.
- Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
Preview
A series of articles on his 1864 voyage to Labrador on the Benjamin S. Wright with artist William Bradford. Passengers included a Colonel: A Greenland voyager, and better read than any man I have met in the literature of Northern travel.
When God Came to the Belchers.
Sullivan, Alan. Queen’s Quarterly 51 no 2 (1944) p. 14-28.
- Arctic Reading: Inuit and other indigenous people
Preview
On the Belcher murders connected to a religious frenzy by hunters who thought they were God and Jesus:
Back to Hampton Roads: Cruise of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet from San Francisco to Hampton Roads July 7, 1908—February22, 1909.
Matthews, Franklin. New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1909.
- 1907-09 US Circumnavigation by the Great White Fleet.
- Arctic Reading: United States
Preview
p. 76-77: Before the Americans came here they knew little in a definite way about Australia. They got all the books they could find on
The Quiet Land: The Diaries of Frank Debenham, Member of the British Antarctic Expedition 1910-1913.
Debenham, Frank. Edited by June Debenham Back. Foreword by Sir Vivian Fuchs. Bluntisham, U.K., Bluntisham Books/Erskine Press, 1992.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
On Debenham’s experience of the Scott expedition and its tragic end. It was he who suggested that excess funds in the memorial Appeal be used for an institute of Polar research and he became SPRI’s first Director, an unpaid position which he held from 1920 to 1946.