Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage and of a Residence in the Arctic Regions during the Years 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833. 2 vols.

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Including the Reports of Commander now Captain James Clark Ross ... and the Discovery of the North Magnetic Pole. London: A. W. Webster 1835. Large 4to. Orig. dark blue patterned cloth with gilt titles on spines (slightly marked). (8 XXXIV 740 & XII 120 CXLIV CIVpp.). With 2 frontispieces 48 plates and charts of which 22 are and-coloured aquatint plates. Complete with Appendix in Vol. 2 and errata-pages in both vols. 1st edition. Large-paper copy partly unopened. Apart from some offsetting / foxing of the b/w plates a very good complete copy. The coloured plates are remarkably clean. Hill pp. 261. NOTE: In Jan. 1818 Ross was appointed to the 'Isabella' a hired whaler as commander of an expedition which with the 'Alexander' commanded by Parry sailed in April to endeavour to make the N. W. Passage through Davis Strait. It was the renewal of the search which had been laid on one side during the long war and resulted in the rediscovery of Baffin's Bay and the identification of the several points named in Baffin's map. Ross then attempted to proceed westward through Lancaster Sound but being deceived presumably by a mirage he described the passage as barred by a range of mountains which he named the Croker Mountains and returned to England. The report was in the first instance accepted as conclusive and Ross was promoted to Post rank on 7 Dec. 1818. Owing to the mistake however Ross was not employed again until 1829 when he was offered the command of the 'Victory' a small vessel fitted out mainly at the expense of Felix Booth and Ross himself. He was stopped by the ice south of Regent's Inlet and wintered there. The next summer he worked further south and in May 1832 had to abandon his ship trapped in the ice. Fortunately he and his crew reached the point where Parry's ship 'Fury' had been lost in 1825 and wintered in a hut built from the wreckage. In the summer of 1833 they were rescued by his old ship the whaler 'Isabella' in Lancaster Sound and returned to England. The voyage was remarkable for the length of time spent in the ice the survey of Boothia and the discovery of the N. Magnetic Pole by Ross' nephew James Clark Ross during an extensive sledge journey.