The Open Polar Sea / A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States"

NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY TOWARDS THE NORTH POLE,
IN THE
SCHOONER UNITED STATES.
NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON, 1867.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by I. I. Hayes, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
I HAD INTENDED TO DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO WILLIAM PARKER FOULKE, Of Philadelphia, To whom I am indebted for all that a powerful intellect and a generous friendship could do, to give practical shape to my plans, and to insure success to an enterprise in which I had embarked, with the simple advantage of an aim, and with no better guide than the impulse of youth: but since it is denied me to pay that tribute of my admiration to one of the noblest of men, I now inscribe it to his MEMORY.
The design of this book may be briefly explained. I have attempted little more than a personal narrative, endeavoring to select from my abundant notes such scenes and incidents of adventure as seemed to me best calculated to bring before the mind of the reader, not merely the history of our voyage, but a general view of the Arctic regions,—its scenery and its life, with a cursory glance at those physical forces which, in their results, give characteristic expression to that remote quarter of the world. A day of months, followed by a night of months, where the mean annual temperature rises but little above zero, must necessarily clothe the air and the landscape with a sentiment difficult to appreciate, or, I might perhaps say, feel, without actual observation. I shall be abundantly rewarded if I have succeeded in impressing upon the reader's mind, with any degree of vividness, the wonders and the grandeur of Nature as unfolded to us under the Arctic sky.
I know it is usually thought that a book of travels should be simply a diary of events and incidents; but this, of necessity, involves a ceaseless repetition, and it seemed to me that I would do better to drop from my diary all that did not appear as immediately relevant to the scene; and, indeed, where the occasion appeared to require concentration, to abandon the diary altogether, and use the more concise form of descriptive narrative.