Narrative of the North Polar Expedition; U. S. Ship Polaris, Captain Charles Francis Hall Commanding; edited under the direction of Hon. G. M. Robeson, Secretary of the Navy

4to [26.5 x 21 cm]; 696 pp, 2 steel engraved frontis's, including portrait, 30 wood-engraved plates with tissue guards, 2 photolithographs (partly colored), 6 maps, other wood engraved illustrations (complete), index. original pictorial gilt cloth, gilt spine title lettering, edges rubbed, spine faded but lettering clear, light spotting on lower cover, internally clean, fine, and unmarked in good cover. A picture of this book is available upon request by email. Cooke 233. Arctic Bibliography 18382: 'Narrative of the Polaris Expedition 1871-1873 to seek the North Pole, explore regions north of Smith Sound and to make scientific investigations.' The work is a well-illustrated account of the expedition, the sledge and boat journeys, scientific activities, the death of Hall on the expedition, with an extended review of his work, the attempted voyage south, drift of the ice-floe party to the Labrador coast, and the rescue of both parties and the subsequent inquiry. The appendices provide correspondence between the British admiralty and the US Navy. Hall, one the great Arctic explorers, was the first to report on the fate of the lost Franklin expedition, based on his earlier expedition.