Report of Board of Officers to Consider an Expedition for the Relief of Lieut. Greely and Party

In 1881, Adolphus Greely led a US Arctic expedition to gather meteorological, astronomical and magnetic data. It was poorly supported by the US Army, neither Greely nor his men had experience of Arctic conditions, and their ship, the Proteus, sailed home once they had landed in Greenland. An inadequately planned relief mission failed to reach them in 1882, and a second expedition in 1883, including the Proteus (which was crushed by ice), also failed to locate the men or to land sufficient supplies. This official report was published in 1884, and proposes a further rescue mission, much more carefully planned and equipped. It includes, as an appendix, detailed information about Arctic conditions and means of survival from the British naval explorers George Nares and Albert H. Markham. When eventually found, only seven of Greely's original team of twenty-five were still alive. Other accounts of the expeditions are also reissued in this series.