The Voyage of the Jeannette

George W. De Long (184481) was a US Navy officer who set out to find a new route to the North Pole via the Bering Strait. During his voyage which left San Francisco in 1879 he claimed the De Long Islands for the USA. But when his vessel the Jeannette sank the crew abandoned ship and he eventually died of starvation in Siberia. Compiled by his wife from his journals and the testimony of the survivors these two volumes document De Long''s doomed expedition. First published in 1883 Volume 2 records the Jeannette''s final wreckage and the crew''s continuation of their perilous mission in smaller boats. It concludes with the discovery of De Long''s records and later his remains by surviving crew member George Melville. Providing a vivid account of nineteenth-century polar exploration it remains of great interest to scholars of geography and maritime studies.