PREFACE. 9 



arise from a perusal of these unpretending annals without 

 feeling that the time devoted to it has been well spent, 

 and we also feel assured that those who read the book 

 through will lay it down with the single regret that they 

 have reached the end, and they will look forward with 

 eager eyes to further developments in that most unattract- 

 ive hi itself, and yet strangely fascinating, portion of 

 God's universe. There certainly will be further develop- 

 ments. The Polaris expedition, w r ith all its sad and dis- 

 tressing features ; the death of its gallant commander, 

 after accomplishing so much, on the very eve of the great 

 triumph he had labored so many anxious years to achieve ; 

 his solemn burial so far from home and kindred and 

 friends, in the ice-girt shores of that frigid clime of per- 

 petual cold; the almost incredible sufferings and perils 

 of a portion of its crew in their six months' sojourn on 

 the ice-raft, all this and even more would not prevent 

 repeated essays in the same direction. Indeed, it is more 

 than probable that, despite suffering, peril, disaster and 

 death, there will ever be sanguine projectors and daring 

 explorers, who will not give over the idea until every 

 attainable region of the Arctic Regions shall have been 

 thoroughly explored, the mysteries all unraveled, and the 

 nations of the earth made fully acquainted with the 

 secrets of the Frozen Regions of the North. We hold 

 our pen ready to indite the success and grand triumph of 

 the hero who shall reach the North Pole itself; meanwhile, 

 we rest content with the assurance that we tell in this 

 Volume all that is yet known of 



THE WONDERS OF THE ARCTIC WORLD. 



