PLAN OF THE EXPEDITION.—FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT.—APPEAL TO SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.—AID SOLICITED.—PUBLIC LECTURES.—LIBERALITY OF VARIOUS SOCIETIES AND INDIVIDUALS.—VESSEL PURCHASED IN BOSTON.—INTEREST MANIFESTED IN THAT CITY.—DIFFICULTY IN OBTAINING A PROPER CREW.—ORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY.—SCIENTIFIC OUTFIT.—ABUNDANT SUPPLIES.
I purpose to record in this Book the events of the Expedition which I conducted to the Arctic Seas.
The plan of the enterprise first suggested itself to me while acting as Surgeon of the Expedition commanded by the late Dr. E. K. Kane, of the United States Navy. Although its execution did not appear feasible at the period of my return from that voyage in October, 1855, yet I did not at any time abandon the design. It comprehended an extensive scheme of discovery. The proposed route was that by Smith's Sound. My object was to complete the survey of the north coasts of Greenland and Grinnell Land, and to make such explorations as I might find practicable in the direction of the North Pole.
My proposed base of operations was Grinnell Land, which I had discovered on my former voyage, and had personally traced beyond lat. 80°, far enough to satisfy me that it was available for my design.
Accepting the deductions of many learned physicists that the sea about the North Pole cannot be frozen, that an open area of varying extent must be found within the Ice-belt which is known to invest it, I desired to add to the proofs which had already been
