Includes bibliographical references.

The company of the USS Jeannette -- Baptism by ice -- A great blank space. A shocking Sabbath carnival of death ; Ne plus ultra ; The Lord of Creation ; For you I will dare anything ; Gateways to the Pole -- The national genius. The engine of the world ; Satisfaction ; The Sage of Gotha ; Pandora ; Three years, or eternity ; A benediction ; Second chances ; The U.S. Arctic Expedition ; All that man can do ; The new invader -- A glorious country to learn patience in. A cul-de-sac ; Nipped ; Among the swells ; If by any mischance ; A delusion and a snare ; Forever, almost ; Invisible hands -- We are not yet daunted. On the lone icebound sea ; The discovered country ; Tidings ; Death strokes -- The end of creation. All Mucky ; Nil desperandum ; The phantom continent ; A second promised land ; Eight precious days ; The known world ; Seas high and spiteful -- The whisper of the stars. Lucky fourteen ; Remember me in New York ; If it takes my last dollar ; Frantic pantomimes ; Incubus of horrors ; White gloom ; The Russian nation at your back ; They that watch for the morning ; A wild dirge through time -- As long as I have ice to stand on.

A dramatic account of the ill-fated 19th-century naval expedition to the North Pole cites the contributions of German cartographer August Petermann, New York Herald owner James Gordon Bennett and famed naval officer George Washington De Long in the team's efforts to survive brutal environmental conditions.