Kane, Elisha Kent: ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS: THE SECOND GRINNELL EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN, 1853, ’54, ’55. Illustrated by upwards of three hundred engravings, from sketches by the author. 2 Volumes , Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 1856.

1st Edition: Volume I tissue-guarded frontispiece portrait of Elisha Kent Kane engraved on steel by R. Whitechurch after a Mathew Brady daguerreotype; Volume II tissue-guarded frontispiece portrait of Henry Grinnell engraved on steel by F. Helpin after a daguerreotype by Mathew Brady. [i-ii] publisher's advertisement, [ii], 464; [ii], 467 [1] pp. 22 plates, 3 maps (2 folding). Illustrated with nearly 300 engravings on steel and wood from sketches by the author. Frontispiece portraits, title page vignettes, head- and tail-pieces. Half-title page vignettes by J. McGoffin after drawings by J. Hamilton. Brown eps. Origianl dark brown cloth covers with gilt titling to spines. Arctic Bibliography 8373; Sabin 37007; Hill, 159; TPL 3566; There is a good account of the voyage to Smith Sound, and of the winter on the north-west coast of Greenland, with extensive notes on the flora and fauna, the eskimoes and the glaciers, and the story of the final abandonment of the "Advance" and the party's return in small boats. The folding cloth backed map is present. .‘Popular belief and many first-rank scientists . . . posited an open polar sea. On the shores of such a sea some remnant of Franklin’s men might yet be alive; the route to that sea might lie through Smith Sound; no one had yet sailed beyond its northern portals. Kane determined to do so. John P. Kennedy, secretary of the navy, gave enthusiastic personal support, and Henry Grinnell donated the brig Advance. Private subscription financed the enterprise . . . . No trace of Franklin’s party was found by the expedition, but the coasts of Kane Basin were charted and Kennedy Channel was discovered . . . . Meteorological, magnetic, astronomical, and tidal observations, botanical, glacial, and geological surveys, studies of animal and Eskimo life, established sound foundations for the scientific study of the Arctic . . . . In August 1854 Hayes [the surgeon] and eight men, protesting the commander’s resolve to remain a second winter, announced their determination to hazard the journey to the South Greenland settlements. Kane, sanctioning the withdrawal, equipped them from limited supplies. In December they returned to the vessel, broken in body and morale. Kane became doctor, nurse, and cook to a shipful of bedridden men. With indomitable courage he planned and then executed their escape. The Advance, still frozen in, was abandoned May 20, 1855. With the loss of one man, the party, carrying the invalids, reached Upernivik, in eighty-three days, a retreat which stands in the annals of Arctic exploration as archetype of victory in defeat . . . . Arctic explorations lay for a decade with the Bible on almost literally every parlor table in America’ (DAB). Shelfware, edgeworn, corners bumped, some chipping, wear,very slight fraying to covers, spines, sporadic foxing, very small tear to pull out map, as usual, Vol I. Very Good. (Book ref. 2375)  £200.00

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