THE ARCTIC REGIONS, AND Polar Discoveries DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: WITH THE DISCOVERIES MADE BY CAPTAIN MCCLINTOCK EXPEDITION. BY P. L. SIMMONDS, F.R.G.S. LONDON: ROUTLEDGE, WARNE, AND ROUTLEDGE, 2, FARRINGDON STREET. NEW YORK: 56, WALKER STREET. 1860. 203, d. 254. PREFACE TO THE NINTH EDITION. Or the many gallant exploits and daring adventures by land and by sea, which have added to the reputation and noble deeds of Englishmen, there is none of which we have greater reason to be proud than those perilous explorations in the Arctic Regions, which will ever render the nineteenth century a marked era in the history of Nations. Dangers and hardships seem rather to attract than to appal the adventurous Englishman, and private and public explorations have followed each other in such quick succession, during the past ten years, that it has been somewhat difficult to keep pace with the record of them. Every succeeding voyager and traveller seems to have striven to outdo his predecessors in acquiring fame, and in the boldness and daring with which he has prosecuted his researches. If we have had little opportunity for the display of heroism in the competitive war struggle on the ocean of late years, our naval officers have at least sought and gained reputation in the icy fields of the Arctic Regions, in the extended search for our lost countrymen under Sir John Franklin. The Chart of the Polar Regions will ever be a striking memorial of what can be done by brave hearts and willing hands. The highly wrought pictures of fiction fade before the simple and stern truths of reality, and the narratives of Arctic Discovery have an exciting interest and thrilling pathos, which will ever render them deeply attractive to both old and young in all ages. Even when the melancholy personal interest which is now felt by those who mourn for relatives and friends lost in Arctic voyages shall have subsided, the stirring history recorded in these pages will have an interest for future generations when all who have taken part in them shall have passed away. The love of adventure is inherent in the breast of the Englishman, and shows itself in a hundred varied shapes, but in none more prominently than in the desire to explore unknown countries and distant regions. Maritime discovery has been the peculiar field of British enterprise and British glory, and in no quarter has it found a more xi enduring faith.-Ber letter to the American the North-west Passage Clure reaches Melville Island from the westward.— 241 |