Stray Leaves From An Arctic Journal; Or Eighteen Months In The Polar Regions, In Search Of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, In The Years 1850-51 Osborn, Sherard (1822-1875) Americana & Canadiana,Voyages & Travel

(7 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches). First edition. A4 B-X8. [i-x] [1]-320 [1]-32. 362 pp. One large folding map titled "Map Shewing the Track of H.M.S. Pioneer in Search of Sir John Franklin 1851-1852" by Trelawney Saunders. Four tinted chromolithograph plates: "Cape Hotham" at frontis, "Breaking through the Ice" p.82, "Winter Quarters" p.157, and "Sledge Traveling" p.204, by M. A. N. Hanhart after Osborn. One in-text woodcut illustration at p.108. Chromolithograph frontispiece, Title, Dedication, Preface, List of Plates, Map, Text, Appendix, Publisher's catalog. Presentation inscription on front pastedown, dated July 7, 1852. Publisher's grained brown cloth, paneled in blind, with gilt title on spine, and binder's ticket of Remnant and Edmonds on rear pastedown First edition of a Franklin Search narrative in its original cloth with a colored folding map of the Arctic. "Account by the commander of the Pioneer, one of the tenders to the Resolute and Assistance, of the 1850-51 Franklin search expedition under Capt. H. T. Austin." [Arctic Bibliography] In 1850, Osborn was appointed commander of the Pioneer steam-tender in the Arctic expedition under Captain Austin, who was aboard the Resolute, to join the search for Franklin. The expedition discovered traces of Franklin having wintered at Beechey Island in 1845-46, proving Franklin's ships had not been lost in Baffin's Bay. "Considered as a surveying expedition, the voyage was eminently successful. Much of the success of the voyage was due to the steam-tenders, which, during the summers of 1850 and 1851, held out new prospects for Arctic navigation. The way in which the Pioneer or Intrepid cut through rotten ice, or steamed through the loose pack in a calm, was an object-lesson to the whalers, and led directly to the employment of powerful screw-steamers in the whaling fleet." [ODNB] Indeed, in the preface, Osborn refers to the expedition as "the first, and severe, trial of steam in the Arctic regions." Upon his return to England in 1851, he urged the renewal of the search for Franklin, and the public's interest was stimulated by the publication of the present work in February of 1852. The searching expedition of Edward Belcher (1799-1877) was undertaken early that year. Osborn went on to become a distinguished rear admiral in the British Navy and editor of another important book concerning the Arctic, McClure's Discovery of the North-West Passage (London: 1856). Arctic Bibliography 12899. ODNB. Sabin 57760. Stanton and Tremaine 3193.