Dr. Kane's Voyage to the Polar Lands

220 pp. "This book is based on a hitherto unknown manuscript by Johan Carl Christian Petersen, a member of the second American Grinnell arctic exploring expedition which attempted to reach the North Pole by way of northern Greenland during the years 1853-1855. Petersen's private journal is of special interest, since his account of the voyage differs appreciably from the versions given in the published works of Elisha Kent Kane, the commander of the expedition, and of Isaac Israel Hayes, second in command. Petersen's journal recounts the hardships that the withdrawal party faced: the cold, the hunger, the sickness, and the chance of betrayal or attack by the Eskimos. In fact, one of the book's main points of interest is Petersen's descriptions of the Eskimos and their life in the frozen wastes of Greenland. ...The book has supplementary maps and is complete with photographs, among them a rare Brady photograph of the leadres of the Kane expedition taken in 1856."