A Polar Reconnaissance
Being the Voyage of the Isbjörn to Novaya Zemlya in 1879
Cambridge Library Collection - Polar Exploration Series

Enhanced by several attractive engravings, this work, first published in 1881, illuminates Arctic exploration in the region of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, north of the Russian mainland. Naval officer Albert Hastings Markham (1841?1918) summarises previous discoveries and voyages made in the region by various navigators from England, Russia, Norway and elsewhere. He goes on to give an account of his 1879 voyage aboard the Norwegian cutter Isbjörn, offering details of Arctic flora and fauna, topographical and oceanographic features, and navigational difficulties presented by ice. For those interested in the scientific aspects of the expedition, the appendices contain notes and lists, prepared by experts, drawing on the various botanical and zoological specimens that were collected. Also reissued in this series are Markham's A Whaling Cruise to Baffin's Bay (1874), The Great Frozen Sea (1878) and Northward Ho! (1879).

Preface; 1. Introductory; 2. Early English voyages to the north-east; 3. Early Dutch voyages to the north-east; 4. Russian discoveries in Novaya Zemlya; 5. Norwegian explorers in Novaya Zemlya; 6. Austro-Hungarian, Swedish, and Dutch expeditions in modern times; 7. The Isbjörn; 8. First days at sea; 9. Nameless bay; 10. The Matyushin Shar; 11. First attempt to push north frustrated; 12. The Kara sea; 13. Baffled in the Kara sea; 14. Meeting with the 'Willem Barents'; 15. Northward ho! and homeward bound; 16. Valedictory; Appendices; Index.