Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage and of a Residence in the Arctic Regions During the Years 1829, 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833 Including the Report of Commander, now Captain, Ja

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Author: John Ross (1777-1856) Year: 1835 Publisher: A W Webster Place: London Description: xxiv+740 pages with frontispiece, 24 plates (three of which are color printed mezzotints), 6 maps (two folding), errata leaf at front, without half-title, ads and addenda. Quarto (10 3/4" x 8 1/2") Early half purple morocco over pebbled cloth, the spine tooled and lettered in gilt with raised bands, the edges marbled. (Abbey Travel 636; Arctic Bibliography 14866; Sabin 73381) First edition. Admiral Sir John Ross was a British naval officer and Arctic explorer. He was the uncle of Captain Sir James Clark Ross, RN who explored the Arctic with him, and later led expeditions to Antarctica. In 1819, William Parry, his lieutenant on the previous expedition, returned to the Arctic, and sailed 600 miles west beyond the "Crocker Hills", thereby discovering the main axis of the Northwest Passage. Partly to redeem his reputation Ross proposed to use a shallow-draft steam ship to break through the ice. The Admiralty was not interested, but he was able to convince the gin-magnate Felix Booth to finance a second expedition. His ship was Victory , a side-wheel steamer with paddles that could be lifted away from the ice and an experimental high-pressure boiler built by John Ericsson. (The engine caused trouble and during the first winter it was dumped on the shore.) It carried four officers (Ross, James Clark Ross, William Thom and surgeon George McDairmid) and 19 men. The goal was Prince Regent Inlet

• Binding: Hardcover

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