Preface; Part I. 1. The Arctic regions; 2. Ice and icebergs; 3. Tribes around the pole; 4. Ultima Thule; 5. First crossing of the threshold; 6. The Norsemen in Greenland; 7. Nicholas of Lynn - Zeno - medieval nautical instruments; 8. First English voyages to the north-east - Willoughby - Chancellor Burroughs - Pet; 9. Barentsz - Linschoten - De Veer; 10. Sir Martin Frobisher; 11. John Davis; 12. The merchant adventurers and Richard Hakluyt; 13. Greenland voyage of Hall and Baffin; 14. Early Spitsbergen voyages; 15. Early voyages to Hudson's Bay; 16. William Baffin; 17. Jens Eriksen Munk - Foxe and James - Wood; 18. Hans Egede and Danish Greenland; 19. The Hudson's Bay Company - Hearne and Mackenzie - Cook and Phipps; 20. Russian Arctic discoveries; 21. The British whale fishery and the Scoresbys; 22. Buchan and Ross; 23. Parry and his school; 24. Discovery of the north coast of America - Franklin - Richardson - Back - Dease - Simpson - Rae; 25. John Ross, James Ross, and the north magnetic pole; 26. The Franklin expedition; 27. The search for Franklin I; 28. The search for Franklin II; 29. Discovery of the fate of Franklin; 30. The east coast of Greenland - Scoresby - Clavering - Graah - Koldewey; 31. Spitsbergen - expeditions before 1872; 32. Franz Josef Land and its explorers; 33. The route by Smith Sound - Kane - Hayes - Hall - Nares - Markham; 34. Sir Allen Youn and the Pandora - Amundsen and the North West Passage; 35. Weyprecht's plan for synchronous observations - the Greely expedition; 36. The North East Passage - Nordenskiöld - Wiggins - De Long; 37. Greenland and its inland ice - Nordenskiöld, Nansen, Peary; 38. The trans-polar drift - Nansen and the voyage of the Fram; 39. The Parry archipelago - Sverdrup; 40. Attempts to reach the north pole - Cagni - Cook - Peary; 41. Koolemans Beynen and the voyages of the Willem Barentsz - Sir Martin Conway and Spitsbergen - Captain Bernier and Canadian Arctic lands; 42. East coast of Greenland - Danish expeditions; 43. Later Greenland explorations - Mikkelsen - Rasmussen - Koch; 44. Conclusion; Part II. 45. The great southern continent; 46. Captain Cook - Bellingshausen; 47. The South Shetlands - Foster - Weddell; 48. Enderby and his captains: Biscoe - Kempe - Balleny; 49. Dumont D'Urville and Wilkes; 50. First Antarctic voyage of Sir James Ross; 51. Second Antarctic voyage; 52. Third Antarctic voyage of Sir James Ross; 53. Antarctic oceanography; 54. Revival of Antarctic exploration; 55. Private expeditions - Borchgrevink - Gerlache - Nordenskiöld - Bruce - Drygalksi - Charcot - Filchner; 56. Preparations for the Societies' Antarctic expedition; 57. The Societies' Antarctic expedition - first year; 58. The Societies' Antarctic expedition - the Morning; 59. The Societies' Antarctic expedition - second year; 60. Shackleton's attempt to reach the pole; 61. Amundsen's journey to the south pole; 62. Mawson's expedition; 63. Captain Scott's last expedition; 64. Captain Scott's last expedition - the end; 65. Remaining Antarctic work; Chronology of polar voyages and explorations; Brief bibliography of polar voyages and travels; Index.