16 
ORGANIZATION. 
losophical Society,—I name tliem in the order in 
which they announced their contributions, — and a 
number of scientific associations and friends of science 
besides, had come forward to help me; and by their 
aid I managed to secure a better outfit for purposes 
of observation than would otherwise have been pos¬ 
sible to a party so limited in numbers and absorbed 
in other objects. 
Ten of our little party belonged to the United 
States Navy, and were attached to my command by 
orders from the Department; the others were shipped 
by me for the cruise, and at salaries entirely dispro- 
portioned to their services: all were volunteers. We 
did not sail under the rules that govern our national 
ships; but we had our own regulations, well con¬ 
sidered and announced beforehand, and rigidly adhered 
to afterward through all the vicissitudes of the expe¬ 
dition. These included—first, absolute subordination 
to the officer in command or his delegate; second, 
abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, except when 
dispensed by special order; third, the habitual disuse 
of profane language. We had no other laws. 
I had developed our plan of search in a paper 
read before the Geographical Society. It was based 
upon the probable extension of the land-masses of 
Greenland to the Far North,—a fact at that time not 
verified by travel, but sustained by the analogies of 
physical geography. Greenland, though looked upon 
as a congeries of islands connected by interior glaciers, 
was still to be regarded as a peninsula whose forma- 
