2 cruise of THE NEPTUNE 
The appendices contain the meteorological observations 
taken on the voyage, interesting notes on the thickness and 
growth of the ice; also lists of the birds, plants and fossils col- 
lected in these northern regions. All the collections, except 
that of the marine invertebrates, have been fully determined. 
The amount of new material in the latter required greater time 
for study than could be given before the publication of this 
report, and the results will be included in a future publication. 
This report is based largely upon the knowledge obtained, 
during the voyage, by the scientific staff of the expedition; 
this has been freely supplemented by information taken from 
the reports of previous northern explorations. For the con- 
venience of the reader, constant references are not made to 
these authorities in the text, a list of them being given in an 
appendix. 
Special mention is here made of the indebtedness of the 
author to the valuable information contained in the works of 
Richardson, McClintock, Dawson, Bell and Sverdrup. 
The accompanying map has been compiled by Mr. C. Frank 
"King. It contains all the corrections to coastline made from 
his surveys. The ship's track marked on the map will be found 
convenient in following the text of the narrative. 
All bearings mentioned in the text refer to the true North, on 
account of the confusion arising from the great change in the 
variation of the compass at different localities included in the 
area covered by the report. For example, at Chesterfield inlet 
the compass points true North; while at Beechey island, in 
Lancaster sound, the variation amounts to 160 degrees, so that 
the north end of the needle points south-southwest. 
The illustrations in the text of the report are from photo- 
graphs taken by the author. 
Acknowledgment is made of the kindness of Admiral Sir 
Arch. L. Douglas for his willing assistance in fitting out the 
