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. The reader will observe that I have not attempted, in any sense, to write a work of Science. True, the purpose of the voyage was purely a scientific one,--its chief object and aim being to explore the boundaries of the Open Polar Sea; at least to determine if such a sea did exist, as had been so often asserted; but while I have given a general discussion of the conditions of the Polar waters and the Polar ice, and have recorded many new facts in various departments of physical and natural science, yet I have desired to treat the subject in a manner which, as it seemed to me, would be most acceptable to the general reader, rather than to the scientific student,--preferring to direct the latter to those more strictly scientific channels where my materials have been or are about being published. Soon after returning from the North, my principal records were placed at the disposal of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington; and I have employed such leisure as I could command in their elaboration and discussion,--the principal labor, however, falling upon Mr. Charles A. Schott, Assistant, United States Coast Survey, who brought to the task the best faculties of a well-stored mind, and unusual powers of patient investigation; and papers, giving a full analysis of the _magnetic_, _meteorological_, _astronomical_, _geographical_, _pendulum_, and _tidal_ observations, were prepared, and were accepted for publication in the Smithsonian "Contributions to Knowledge." I regret to say that the publication of these papers has been much delayed. Deeming it desirable that some of the general conclusions to which we had arrived in our discussion of the observations should be given to the world without further postponement, I proposed to embody some leading facts in a short Appendix to this volume. Upon submitting the matter to the learned Secretary of the Institution, it was, however, claimed by him that, since I had intrusted the materials to his care, the Institution now possessed the exclusive right to whatever advantage was to be derived from their publication. To a proposition so eminently reasonable I readily assented, especially as I was informed that the papers were already in type and were to be published immediately; and, considering myself thus absolved from any further responsibility to the scientific world for the long delay, I accordingly abandoned the idea of the Appendix. The Chart exhibiting the track and discoveries of my voyage, and of my various sledge journeys, was claimed, in like manner,