p. 154-55: Previous to our leaving the harbour of Rio de Janeiro, I preached in the English chapel. The congregation was very respectable. The English chaplain who has charge of the congregation, and the chaplain of the Stag [a Brazilian naval ship], were present—the former reading the service.
The Flag Ship: Or A Voyage Around the World, in the United States Frigate Columbia; Attended by Her Consort The Sloop of War John Adams, and Bearing the Broad Pennant of Commodore George C. Read.
Taylor, Fitch Waterman. By Fitch Waterman Taylor, Chaplain to the Squadron. [Two Volumes] New.York: D. Appleton & Co., 1840.
- 1838-39 American Circumnavigation (aboard Columbia commanded by George Campbell Read).
- Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
- Maritime Reading
Preview
Trial by Ice: The True Story of Murder and Survival on the 1871 Polaris Expedition.
Parry, Richard. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.
- 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
- Arctic Reading: United States
Preview
A rather pedestrian and purple account of the Polaris expedition of 1871, the death of Charles F. Hall, the separation of the ship from several of the crew, the stranded sailors’ remarkable survival, and the whitewash of the inquiry into the fate of Hall and the expedition.
The Silent Landscape: The Scientific Voyage of HMS Challenger.
Corfield, Richard. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2003.
- 1872-76 Challenger Expedition of Natural History (George Nares and Frank Thompson).
- Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
- Maritime Reading
Preview
Corfield concentrates on the science of the expedition without neglecting the human relations of the scientifics. One notable chapter is called “The Library of Time,” in which the biological remains dredged from the ocean body, tiny creations which would eventually yield the details of earth’s climatic and oceanographic history: For the geologist and oceanographer there is simply nothing to match the detailed information trapped in the sediment of the deep sea; it is the library of time. [p. 135].
Untitled remarks at the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association convention on May 22, 1952
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley. Published in The Clique June 7, 1952.
- 1910-14 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott on Terra Nova).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley George Benet (1886-1959), British Explorer on Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition, was an unlikely hero for the Heroic Age, a near-sighted, inexperienced ingénue who paid Scott £1000 to participate in and suffer through the Terra Nova expedition. As such he was an always helpful addition to the expedition staff, but his fame rests on his account of The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctica 1910-1913. Two vols. (London: Constable and Co., 1922), listed under the Terra Nova journey.
Of Whales and Men.
Robertson, R. B. (New York: Knopf, 1954).
- Maritime Reading
Preview
A delightful account of a ship’s doctor on an 8-month cruise of a whaling factory ship, with something of a psychological emphasis on the men he was with.
Minutes of Council Northern Department of Rupert Land, 1821-31….
Rupert’s Land. Northern Department. Edited by R. Harvey Fleming. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1940.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Preview
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.]
Master Mariner and Arctic Explorer: A Narrative of Sixty Years at Sea from the Logs and Yarns of Captain J. E. Bernier.
Bernier, J. E. Ottawa, Ont.: Le Droit, 1939.
- Arctic Reading: Canada
Preview
Autobiographical collage by the well-known Canadian mariner, with emphasis on his obsession with the North. Introduction by E.T. [?] is dedicated to Bernier’s wife and gives a succinct summary of Bernier’s life including his four Canadian government expeditions to the North. He was a dedicated Catholic, a lifelong teetotaler, and put his faith in divine Providence.
National Library of Scotland. Archives.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Preview
McClintock Notes : [Murray 12604 1736] McClintock to Murray, generally showing McClintock’s involvement in every detail of the publication of his work.
The Frozen Zone and Its Explorers: A Comprehensive History of Voyages, Travels, Adventures, Disasters, and Discoveries in the Arctic Regions….
Hyde, Alexander. Hartford, CT: Columbia Book CO., 1874.
- Arctic Reading: General
Preview
p. 793-94, concerning the Dutch expedition at Nova Zembla in 1596, describes the Ice House of Berentz found in 1871, a house unvisited for 278 years until 1871, the house included: the books that had beguiled the weary hours of that long night, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago. The ‘History of China’ points to the goal which Barentz sought, while the ‘Manual of Navigation’ indicates the knowledge which guided his efforts. Stranger evidence never told a more deeply interesting story.
Letters Written During the Late Voyage of Discovery in the Western Arctic Sea.
Parry, William Edward. By an Officer of the Expedition. London: Printed for Sir Richard Phillips, 1821.
- 1819-20 British Voyage of Discovery to the Arctic Regions (Edward Parry aboard Hecla and Griper).
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Preview
Letters from the Parry Expedition, 1819-1820, describing the voyage and the wintering at Winter Harbour, Melville Island, the Canadian Arctic waters and their ice, the Arctic night, the activities of the crews. Although anonymous, internal evidence shows the officer to have been one of the midshipmen on the Griper; either A.M. Skene or William Nelson Griffth.
The Rescue of Captain Scott.
Aldridge, Don. East Lothian, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 1999.
- Heroic Age 1901-1921.
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
A judicious debunking of the Scott myths which had in turn rescued him from mediocrity. Draws on Huntford and many others to show Scott as inept, petulant, and egomaniacal.
Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition.
Rasmussen, Knud. New York: Putnam’s, 1927. [Reprinted New York: Greenwood, 1969].
- 1921-24 Danish Fifth Thule Expedition to Eastern Siberia (led by Knud Rassmussen).
- Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
Preview
From ABEBooks, 9/4/17: Between 1921 and 1924, Knud Rasmussen led a small band of colleagues in a journey of investigation across the top of North America. The full scientific report of that 20,000-mile trek by dog sled from Greenland to Siberia, known to history as the Firth Thule Expedition, fills ten volumes. This single volume, Across Arctic America, is Rasmussen’s own reworking and condensation of his two-volume popular account written in Danish, and gives the essence of his experience of the Arctic and its people. It was the people who most captivated the Greenland-born Rasmussen, who had become a virtual adopted son to the Eskimos of the far northern district still known by the name of the trading post he established there, Thule. His first four Thule Expeditions extended the limits of the known world in Greenland solely, but Rasmussen s Fifth Thule Expedition demonstrated the unity of the Eskimo world from the Atlantic Ocean to the Chukchi Sea, proving the people all shared the same basic language and culture.
The Zoology of Captain Beechey’s Voyage, Compiled from the Collections and Notes made by Captain Beechey….1825-28.
Beechey, William Frederick. (London: H. G. Bohn, 1839).
- 1825-28 British Voyage to Pacific Northwest to Meet Captain Franklin at the Bering Straits.
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Preview
After three voyages as a subordinate officer Frederick Beechey was appointed commander of HMS Blossom in 1825 and assigned to the Bering Straits to await the arrival of John Franklin on his second overland expedition to the Mackenzie River Delta and on to the Alaska coast. Although Franklin never arrived (they missed each other by only 200 miles), Beechey and his men employed the time in scientific observation, especially of specimens of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks, some from the South Seas but many from the Arctic waters of Kamchatka and Alaska.
The Wreck of the
Dickens, Charles. Golden Mary.By Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. (New York: Library Publishers, 1956). [Originally published in Household Words, 1856.].
- Arctic Reading: Great Britain
Preview
A compelling tale of shipwreck told by Dickens in the first section, followed by a kind of Decameron of tales told by survivors of the shipwreck as they waited for rescue, and the story of the rescue as told by Collins.
Voyages Round the World; with Selected Sketches of Voyages to the South Seas, North and South Pacific Oceans, China, Etc.,.. between the Years 1792 and 1832.
Fanning, Edmund. New York: Collins & Hannay, 1833. [A later edition is Salem, MA: Marine Research Society, 1924.].
- 1792-32 American Sealing Voyage (Captain Edmund Fanning).
- Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
Preview
Fanning from Stonington was the first known American to reach sub-polar Antarctica on various sealing expeditions, including the Falklands, Shetlands, and South Georgia and at least as far as 58°S. One of the later chapters describes Nathaniel Palmer’s meeting with Alexander I’s Russian ships in 1820-21 who learned from Palmer “of the existence of an immense extent of land to the south, whose mountains might be seen from the mast-head when the fog should clear away entirely” (p. 308). This rather charming book, first published in 1833, while covering several voyages in which Fanning was involved, chiefly as captain, betrays little of any books on board or any reading by him or his sailors other than the obligatory directional books and charts, for which here is one example.