Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-west Passage

London: A. W. Webster, 1835. Hardcover. Good +. 2 vols.: xxxiii, [1], 740 p. interspersed with plates and maps; xii, 120, cxliv, cii, [1] p. 30 cm. Vol. 1 has 30 plates and maps, 3 in colour. Vol. 2 has 20 plates,12 in colour. Original blue cloth binding. Covers reattached. Respined with original spines overlaid. Ink stamps on title pages. Occasional thumbing. Dampstain to lower corner of frontispiece and tissue guard in vol. 2. Severe foxing in vol. 2 pp. x-xii and rear of plate opposite xii, also to first pages of Meteorology Appendix at rear.

Title continues: "and of a Residence in the Arctic Regions During the Years 1829, 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833. By Sir John Ross, C.B., K.S.A., K.C.S., &c. &c. Captain in the Royal Navy. Including the Reports of Commander, now Captain, James Clark Ross, R.N., F.R.S., F.L.S., &c. and The Discover of the Northern Magnetic Pole; Appendix". After his expedition for the Admiralty in 1818, John Ross reported that both Smith Sound and Lancaster Sound were enclosed by mountains, a mistake for which he was later severely criticised. When the Admiralty rejected his plan to use a steamship to explore Prince Regent Inlet, Ross gained the private sponsorship of the gin merchant Sir Felix Booth for his second expedition from 1829 to 1833. With his nephew James Clark Ross as second-in-command, Ross crossed Boothia Isthmus (named after his new patron) and reached the magnetic pole but was forced to abandon ship because of scurvy and because the ship was beset by ice. The Rosses and their crew spent four harrowing winters in the Arctic before the whaler Isabella eventually picked them up in Lancaster Sound.