NORTHWEST BY SEA

Written by the Director of the Peabosy Museum of Salem, Mass., who as editor of knows his way through sea-documents, this excellent book presents a detailed account of the Northwest Passage and of the men and ships who have struggled through Arctic ice to find it. Although the search for the Passage, and a sea-route to the Indies, began with John Cabot in 147, not until the mid-1840's was its existence proved beyond doubt. In 1903 Roald Amundsen first navigated the entire Passage in his tiny ship Gjoa: in 1958 the atomic submarines and made their under-ice voyages through the Passage. Great navigators cut their teeth on the Passage: Chancellor and Frobisher, Brunel, Davis, Barents and many others, among them the greatest of them all, in the early 1820's, William Edward Barry. Of the men who searched for the Passage for 450 years, and so doing, mapped the whole north coast of the Continent, many returned to port safely, but many others died, of cold, scurvy, starvation, or were killed by natives or polar bears. In 1611 a mutinous crew abandoned Henry Hudson and some of his men on the frozen shore of Hudson's Bay; in 1845 the seasoned Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, with his ships Erebus and Terror, proved that the Passage was no dream,- and with his men was never seen again. Research historians will value this book not only for content but also for its superb ""Chronological Tables"", listing all navigators and ships to search for the Passage, together with dates of sailing and dates of return -- if any. A book for navigators and seamen of all breeds, it will also be relished by arm-chair explorers in steam-heated apartments.