friends and relatives may identify their dead, and revisit in
imagination the spots in which the ashes lie. Lastly, he has carried
home with him material evidence to complete the annals of Arctic
exploration."

The record of Schwatka's expedition is written in these pages. Much of
it has already been published in detached letters by the 'New York
Herald', which engaged the author to act as its correspondent during
the journey. Other hands than his have reduced it to its present shape,
for his restless energy has again driven him toward the North, and has
enlisted him among the crew of the 'Rodgers', which is seeking the
lost 'Jeannette'. Beyond a mere concatenation of the chapters it
has been nowhere altered with a view to literary effect or sensational
color. The notes from which it is drawn were made from day to day; and
if critics find in it facts which are either improbable or unpalatable,
they may, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing that it is a
faithful narrative of carefully sifted evidence.

This needs to be said because the statements of the writer have already
been questioned in one or two details. He says that the party
experienced such cold weather as was almost without precedent in Arctic
travel, the temperature falling to seventy-one degrees below zero. He
says that the party killed more than five hundred reindeer, besides
musk-oxen, bears, walrus, and seal, in regions where Rae and McClintock
could scarcely find game at all, and where the crews of the
'Erebus' and 'Terror' starved to death. He says that of the
last survivors of Franklin's party the majority were officers, arguing
that the watches and silver relics found with their skeletons go far to
prove their rank. These statements have been doubted. The accuracy of
the thermometers being questioned, they were tested and found to be