Description: The Land of Desolation: Being a Personal Narrative of Observation and Adventure in Greenland. By Isaac I. Hayes, M.D. 1st American Edition published in 1872 by Harper & Brothers of New York. Isaac Israel Hayes (born March 5, 1832, Chester county, Pa., U.S.—died Dec. 17, 1881, New York, N.Y.) was an American physician and Arctic explorer who sought to prove the existence of open seas around the North Pole. After receiving his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (1853), Hayes volunteered to serve as surgeon with Elisha Kent Kane’s Arctic expedition, which planned to search for Sir John Franklin, the English explorer whose ships were lost in the Canadian Arctic in 1845. On May 31, 1853, Kane’s expedition sailed from New York City on the Advance. It spent the following winter icebound in Kane Basin off northwestern Greenland. During this time Hayes made several expeditions to nearby Ellesmere Island in the Canadian North, where in May 1854 he explored the region known as Grinnell Land. His attempt to reach the west coast of Greenland at Upernavik (August 1854) became the subject of his book, An Arctic Boat Journey (1860). Commanding the schooner United States, Hayes sailed again for the Arctic in July 1860. He wintered somewhat south of the point where the Advance had been icebound and in the spring of 1861 began to sledge northward. It is almost certain that he reached only slightly beyond 80° N, and the “open polar sea” that he believed he observed was, in actuality, Kennedy Channel, which separates Greenland from Ellesmere Island. After returning to the United States, Hayes enrolled as a surgeon with the Union Army. In 1862, he was placed in command of the Satterlee General Hospital, a sprawling 4,500-bed military hospital in Philadelphia which saw spikes in patients following the Second Battle of Bull Run and Battle of Gettysburg, the latter of which was responsible for "swelling the hospital population to more than 6,000" after "the greatest number of wounded were admitted to the hospital in a single month" during the summer of 1863. Rendering care to as many as 50,000 sick and wounded during the time this hospital was open, the physicians and nurses under Hayes lost only 260 patients between the time of the hospital's opening and closure, a significant achievement when considering the challenges they faced in treating not only the sheer volume of patients they were required to process, but in doing so while employing relatively rudimentary medical care procedures and sanitation practices. He made a third voyage to the Arctic in 1869. His observations from that venture were detailed in The Land of Desolation (1871, 1872). Condition: 152 years old and in solid condition for age. Sound binding. Rubbing to top and bottom of spine and board tips. Spine is sunned and rubbed. Mottling especially to back boards. Period brown endpapers are whole with NO splitting over the hinges. Pages are tight, whole and overall clean with only a few spots of foxing spotted. Illustrated with period engravings. 5" x 7 1/2" with 357 pages plus ads.
Price: 76 USD
Location: Westbrook, Connecticut
End Time: 2024-11-25T19:10:17.000Z
Shipping Cost: 4 USD
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Item Specifics
Restocking Fee: No
Return shipping will be paid by: Seller
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
Refund will be given as: Money Back
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Special Attributes: 1st Edition, Illustrated
Author: Dr. Hayes
Topic: North America
Subject: Exploration & Travel
Original/Facsimile: Original
Year Printed: 1872
