18 
VESSELS AT ANCHOR 
arrangements ; but I could not help being struck with 
the universal sympathy displayed toward our expedi- 
tion. From the ladies who busied themselves in seal- 
ing up air-tight packages of fruit-cakes, to the mana- 
gers of the Astor House, who insisted that their hotel 
should be the free head-quarters of our party, it was 
one continued round of proffered services. I should 
have a long list of citizens to thank if I were allowed 
to name them on these pages. 
It was not, perhaps, to be expected that an expedi- 
tion equipped so hastily as ours, and with one engross- 
ing object, should have facilities for observing very 
accurately, or go out of its way to find matters for cu- 
rious research. But even the routine of a national 
ship might, I was confident, allow us to gather some- 
thing for the stock of general knowledge. With the 
assistance of Professor Loomis, I collected as I could 
some simple instruments for thermal and magnetic reg- 
istration, wdiich would have been of use if they had 
found their way on board. A very few books for the 
dark hours of winter, and a stock of coarse woolen 
clothing, re-enforced by a magnificent robe of wolf- 
skins, that had wandered down to me from the snow- 
drifts of Utah, constituted my entire outfit ; and with 
these I made my report to Commodore Salter at the 
Brooklyn Navy Yard. 
Almost within the shadow of the line-of-battle ship 
North Carolina, their hulls completely hidden beneath 
a projecting wharf, were two little hermaphrodite brigs. 
Their spars had no man-of-war trigness ; their decks 
were choked with half-stowed cargo ; and for size, I 
felt as if I could straddle from the main hatch to the 
bulwarks. 
At this first sight of the Grinnell Expedition, I con- 
