In summer 1869, the painter William Bradford sailed north along the coast of Labrador as far as Baffin Island, Canada, and Melville Bay, Greenland, on a purpose-built Arctic steamer, The Panther. The aim of the expedition—which this volume chronicled in text and photographs—was art. Bradford drew and painted oil sketches, but he also brought along the photographers John Dunmore and George Critcherson, each of whom had previously traveled with him. The resulting publication, interspersed with 24 full-page photographs and 117 smaller photographs mounted to text pages, is among the most sumptuous volumes published in the 19th century.