MELVILLE, George Wallace.
In the Lena Delta. A narrative of the search for Lieut.-Commander DeLong and his companions followed by an account of the Greely relief expedition and a proposed method of reaching the North Pole ... edited by Melville Philips. With maps and illustrations. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1892.
8vo, pp. xiii, [3], 497, [1]; with frontispiece and 15 plates, and 4 folding maps; some marginal toning; very good in original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt, upper cover lettered in black with vignette, blue endpapers; a little wear to endcaps and corners.
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In the Lena Delta. A narrative of the search for Lieut.-Commander DeLong and his companions followed by an account of the Greely relief expedition and a proposed method of reaching the North Pole ... edited by Melville Philips. With maps and illustrations.
Later edition (first 1884) by the American explorer and engineer Melville (1841-1912), survivor of George Washington De Long’s tragic North Polar expedition.
In 1879 Melville ‘joined De Long’s crew on the “Jeanette.” When the vessel became lodged in the ice off northeastern Siberia, Melville’s engineering skill helped keep it afloat for almost two years until it was finally crushed. After a long, arduous journey by boat and sledge, Melville and a group of men reached the Siberian shore and obtained help at the mouth of the Lena River. He then led an expedition that found the remains of De Long and his party the following spring. The incredible hardships the searchers endured on their 500-mile (800-kilometre) trek are modestly told in Melville’s In the Lena Delta (1884). He was again chief engineer aboard the “Thetis” on a mission that in June 1884 rescued the survivors from Adolphus Washington Greely’s Arctic expedition’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica).