Hayes.] 3g4 [December. 



Little time was left me for special preparatory study. Mr. Sonntag, 

 the able astronomer and physicist of Dr. Kane's Expedition, volun- 

 teered to assume the same duties during my own, and also to aid me as 

 second in command; and upon him were to be devolved the most im- 

 portant of the observations. His death soon after entering our 

 winter quarters left me with the aid only of three young men, who 

 were dependent, almost wholly, upon my instruction and supervision. 

 I have made these explanations in order that you may the better 

 appreciate the difficulties which embarrassed us, and that, accustomed 

 as you are to the most complete scientific labors, you may not be in- 

 duced in advance to overrate the unpretending collections made during 

 my cruise ; yet it is due to the truth to say, also, that notwithstanding 

 these difficulties, the zealous aid of my 3'oung assistants has enabled 

 me to return with some valuable additions to our previous stores of 

 knowledge. 



You may recollect that my outfit was a very small one. Upon 

 leaving Boston, July 10th, 1860, my entire party numbered only 

 fifteen persons, and we sailed in a schooner of only one hundred and 

 thirty-three tons burden. My purpose was to follow up the line of 

 research opened by Dr. Kane. I allude, of course, to that of Smith 

 Strait and Kennedy Channel. You will readily understand that I 

 had no such idle purpose as was sometimes popularly attributed to 

 me, viz., that of merely reaching the North Pole of the earth, as a 

 feat of adventurous navigation and sledging. 



The general object was to procure as much information as the re- 

 strictions of our voyage would allow, beyond the termination of Dr. 

 Kane's labors, and in the same direction in which they tended. 

 The space between the point at which his personal observations ended 

 and the North Pole, is about six hundred and fifty miles, an in- 

 terval sufficiently large to admit of very numerous and important 

 collections. 



Coinciding with him in the opinion that at some portion of each 

 year there exists a large body of water about or near the Pole, I 

 hoped to extend the evidence which he had collected on this subject 

 as well as on many others. 



It would, of course, have been a source of the highest satisfaction 

 to have succeeded in setting at rest the question of open water, but 

 it was by no means the sole object of the Expedition. 



I will not dwell upon the details of our voyage to Greenland, 

 which was unusually boisterous. The schooner was unavoidably so 

 heavily laden that her deck was never more than eighteen inches 



