In preparing the closing chapters of the work, the testimonies given by the survivors have been carefully compared and made the basis for a consecutive narrative which should complete the history of the expedition.
The illustrations have been studied with great care. The smaller ones in the text have been reproduced from diagrams and sketches made in the journals, by Mr. Newcomb, the naturalist of the party, and by Captain Grönbeck of the Lena; the larger ones have been from the hand of Mr. M. J. Burns, whose experience in the Arctic had given him special facility for making truthful renderings, and his work has been carefully examined and approved by officers of the expedition. The portraits have been taken from the best sources. That of Lieutenant-Commander De Long is from a painting by Mr. E. W. Perry; that of Mr. Bennett was engraved for this work; and those of the officers and other members of the expedition are from the best photographs obtainable. The frontispiece of the second volume is from a drawing made on the spot by Mr. A. Larsen. The maps were drawn for the work, with the exception of that descriptive of the route of the Little Juniata, which is a reduction of the government map in the "Voyage of the Polaris."
The scientific results of the expedition are only partially recorded in the text of the work and in papers included in the Appendix. The government will hereafter issue the notes of the naturalist, the meteorological observations, and the electrical and auroral
