

2 CKUISE 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 



