"A treasure of a book."—David McCullough The harrowing story of a pathbreaking naval expedition that set out to map the entire Pacific Ocean, dwarfing Lewis a

The expedition travelled to Antarctica, the South Pacific, the Atlantic and the coasts of what are now Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

Describes the journey of Charles Wilkes as he led a group of American seamen through the South Pacific and became the first to cite Antarctica as a separate con