Cambridge Library Collection - Polar Exploration
1 primary work • 7 total works
Volume 1
Written by explorer, scientist and later clergyman William Scoresby (1789–1857), this two-volume guide to the Arctic regions was first published in 1820. Scoresby, himself the son of a whaler and Arctic explorer, first sailed to the polar regions at the age of eleven, and was later apprenticed to his father. He became a correspondent of Sir Joseph Banks, and his extensive research on the Arctic area included pioneering work in oceanography, magnetism, and the study of Arctic currents and waves. He surveyed 400 miles of the Greenland coast in 1822. This account was the first book published in Britain which was devoted solely to the whale fisheries. Volume 1 is a general geographical survey of the Arctic region and includes detailed observations of polar ice conditions, atmospherology, and zoology. The book also considers the much-debated question of northern sea communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
William Scoresby junior (1789-1857), explorer, scientist, and later Church of England clergyman, first travelled to the Arctic when he was just ten years old. The son of Arctic whaler and navigator William Scoresby of Whitby, he spent nearly every summer for twenty years at a Greenland whale fishery. He made significant discoveries in Arctic geography, meteorology, oceanography, and magnetism, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1824. First published in 1823, this book recounts Scoresby's voyage to Greenland in the summer of 1822 aboard the Baffin, a whaler of his own design. On this journey, his penultimate voyage to the north, he charted a large section of the coast of Greenland. His narrative also includes descriptions of scientific observations and geographical discoveries made during the voyage, and the appendices includes lists of rock specimens, plants and animal life, and notes on meteorological and other data.
Written by explorer, scientist and later clergyman William Scoresby (1789-1857), this two-volume guide to the Arctic regions was first published in 1820. Scoresby, himself the son of a whaler and Arctic explorer, first sailed to the polar regions at the age of eleven, and was later apprenticed to his father. He became a correspondent of Sir Joseph Banks, and his extensive research on the Arctic area included pioneering work in oceanography, magnetism, and the study of Arctic currents and waves. He surveyed 400 miles of the Greenland coast in 1822. This account was the first book published in Britain which was devoted solely to the whale fisheries. Volume 1 is a geographical survey of the region and includes information on ice conditions, weather and zoology. Volume 2 focuses on the fisheries and includes a history of whaling. The book ends with an account of an 1816 whaling expedition.
Written by explorer, scientist and later clergyman William Scoresby (1789-1857), this two-volume guide to the Arctic regions was first published in 1820. Scoresby, himself the son of a whaler and Arctic explorer, first sailed to the polar regions at the age of eleven, and was later apprenticed to his father. He became a correspondent of Sir Joseph Banks, and his extensive research on the Arctic area included pioneering work in oceanography, magnetism, and the study of Arctic currents and waves. He surveyed 400 miles of the Greenland coast in 1822. This account was the first book published in Britain which was devoted solely to the whale fisheries. Volume 2 focuses on the fisheries and includes a history of whaling, the methods used to extract whale oil and prepare whalebone, and the impact of new developments. The book ends with a detailed account of a whaling expedition in 1816.
Son of an Arctic whaler, William Scoresby (1789-1857) made the first of many voyages to northern latitudes when he was just ten years old. Later a scientist and clergyman, he wrote on a wide range of topics, and his observations on the Arctic prompted further exploration of the region. The two works reissued here together draw on his experience of seafaring in difficult conditions. First published in 1835, Memorials of the Sea is coloured by Scoresby's belief in divine providence. He discusses the observance of the Sabbath at sea, and considers the Mary Russell murders of 1828, where a ship's captain killed his crew. Scoresby interviewed the perpetrator himself and draws his own conclusions as to the meaning of the incident. The second work included in this reissue is The Franklin Expedition (1850), drawing together considerations relating to the fate and whereabouts of the missing explorers.
Son of an Arctic whaler, William Scoresby (1789-1857) made the first of many voyages to northern latitudes when he was just ten years old. Later a scientist and clergyman, he wrote on a wide range of topics, and his observations on the Arctic prompted further exploration of the region. He published some of his accounts under the generic title 'Memorials of the Sea' (his 1835 notes on murder at sea and on the fate of the Franklin expedition have also been reissued in this series). In this 1851 book, Scoresby recounts the life of his father, also William (1760-1829), from his earliest days to his later life as a prosperous captain and exceptional navigator in the Arctic whale-fisheries, at a time when the industry gave rise to extreme danger but also offered enormous financial rewards. William, Jr's biography is also available in the Cambridge Library Collection.
Written by explorer, scientist and later clergyman William Scoresby (1789-1857), this two-volume guide to the Arctic regions was first published in 1820. Scoresby, himself the son of a whaler and Arctic explorer, first sailed to the polar regions at the age of eleven, and was later apprenticed to his father. He became a correspondent of Sir Joseph Banks, and his extensive research on the Arctic area included pioneering work in oceanography, magnetism, and the study of Arctic currents and waves. He surveyed 400 miles of the Greenland coast in 1822. This account was the first book published in Britain which was devoted solely to the whale fisheries. Volume 1 is a general geographical survey of the Arctic region and includes detailed observations of polar ice conditions, atmospherology, and zoology. The book also considers the much-debated question of northern sea communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.