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First edition, 2 volumes, 4to; pp. [8], xxxiii, [1], 740 (with the added leaf *688-*689); xii, 120, cxliv, cii, [1] errata; frontispiece in each volume, and 49 engraved and lithographed plates, charts, and plans (15 hand-colored, 2 folding), both volumes in original blue cloth, gilt-stamped spines; small hole in front joint of volume II, sporadic foxing, especially on the frontispiece in volume II, 2 plates, and several text leaves; generally, a very good to near fine set. With the armorial bookplate of James Whatman, Jr. "Narrative and scientific results of expedition to Boothia Peninsula in the Victory, and return by sledge, boat, and the Isabella" (Arctic Bibliography). The Victory was iced in at the Boothia Peninsula; the expedition team spent three winters on board ship and two summers trying to free the ship. The remaining party eventually escaped, travelling northward along the Boothia coast, wintering on Somerset Island, and reached Captain Ross' former ship, the Isabella. His nephew, James Clark Ross, made a series of sledge trips across the Boothia peninsula and discovered the North Magnetic Pole. "As a result of the failure of his voyage in 1818, the Admiralty refused to support John Ross in a second. It was not until 1829 that the assistance of Felix Booth, the sheriff of London, enabled him to set out in the small paddle-steamer Victory with his nephew James Clark Ross as second-in-command" (Hill). The younger Ross also edited the natural history section of the appendix, while John Ross was responsible for the sections on meteorology and ethnology. Volume I contains the narrative; volume II is the appendix and includes material on the Eskimos and natural history. Many of the colored plates are portraits of Eskimos. Abbey, Travel, 636; Arctic Bibliography 14866; Field 1322; Hill, p. 261; Lande 1426; Sabin 73381 (vol. I) and 73384 (vol. II); TPL 1808.
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