PREFACE. Vll 



homeward route under the conviction that failure would 

 entail the most cruel death. 



Unwittingly we allot the credit to the officers; but, as 

 one of those travellers who entered most fully into the 

 feelings of the men, their habits and prejudices, and 

 free from the killing labour of the drag-rope, my duty 

 compelling me to stop labour when I perhaps felt quite 

 able to endure more, I do conscientiously assert that the 

 greatest credit is due to the fine moral crew which it 

 was my good fortune to command, and to return to this 

 country without even the threat of the lash. What has 

 been their reward ? The excitement of war possibly has 

 blinded their countrymen to their deserts ; or Arctic 

 service, now that search has terminated, is eclipsed by 

 labour in the trenches. 



Thus much then for Arctic service. Next will be 

 found matters connected with science, which, although 

 treated of in the early history which broke ground 

 through Lancaster Sound in 1818-19-20, still left us 

 in doubt as to the general laws which prevailed over a 

 series of years, indeed did not afford any decided data 

 on which argument could be founded, as to the mean 

 temperatures of months or seasons, nor of the ratio in 

 which the freezing of the winter ice covering those seas 

 proceeds. Nor do I pretend to have determined these 

 questions ; but merely in producing possibly the most 

 perfect collection of such records, and, as an observer on 

 the spot, furnishing such ideas as forced themselves on 

 my mind, afford to those more deeply versed in meteoro- 



