[Rarebooks] fa: REPORT of the INTERNATIONAL POLAR EXPEDITION to POINT BARROW, ALASKA 1885

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 24. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/t3pjr78

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

[Patrick Henry Ray:] Report of the International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska, in response to the Resolution of the House of Representatives of December 11, 1884. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1885. First edition. Large 4to (29.5 cm) in early/original pebbled cloth with gilt spine lettering; 695 pp.; with 20 plates (including duo-tone photographs and 3 colored plates, with tissue guards) and a folding map; numerous tables and in-text diagrams.

Binding a bit rubbed and bumped at the extremities; contents mildly toned, some corners bumped, penciled note to the title-page, else clean and sound. "The [Point Barrow] expedition, which was commanded by Lieut. P. H. Ray, Eighth Infantry, U.S. Army, sailed from San Francisco July 18, 1881, and reached Cape Smyth, 11 miles southwest of Point Barrow, on September 8 of the same year. Here a permanent station was established, where the party remained until August 28, 1883, when the station was abandoned, and the party sailed for San Francisco, arriving there October 7. Though the main object of the expedition was the prosecution of the observations in terrestrial magnetism and meteorology, it was possible to obtain a large collection of articles illustrating the arts and industries of the Eskimo of the region, with whom the most friendly relations were early established" (John Murdoch: Ethnological Results of the Point Barrow Expedition, 1889). The work comprises seven sections: I. Orders and Instructions; II. Narrative; III. Ethnographical Sketch of the Natives of Point Barrow (including Vocabulary and List of Ethnological Specimens Collected); IV. Natural History; V. Meteorology; VI. Magnetism; VII. Tides; VIII. Miscellaneous Observations.