INTRODUCTION. 
‘Tur object of the Expedition, of which the 
following pages contain a brief Narrative, is 
already so generally well known, that it re- 
quires little to be said upon it in the way of 
preface. Before we sailed on the first Expedi- 
tion to the Polar Seas, great hopes were enter- 
tained, from the reports of several masters of 
Greenland ships, and other persons, that 
some great change had taken place in the 
Arctic regions; in consequence of which 
they were expected to be found navigable to 
a greater extent than they had been for some 
centuries past. From what we saw, however, 
on that voyage, we had every reason to sup- 
pose that Nature is nearly as regular and uni- 
form in her operations there as in other parts 
of the globe; for our Greenland masters, 
who had been in the habit of visiting these 
