are already well known to the public through the medium of
the daily press. It is feared that the few remaining chapters which were
to have completed his narrative, and which were retained by him,
while the above were in type, for the purpose of revision, have been
irrecoverably lost through the accident by which he perished himself.
This, however, may prove not to be the case, and the papers, if
ultimately found, will be given to the public.

No means have been left untried to remedy the deficiency. The gentleman
whose name is mentioned in the preface, and who, from the statement
there made, might be supposed able to fill the vacuum, has declined
the task-this, for satisfactory reasons connected with the general
inaccuracy of the details afforded him, and his disbelief in the entire
truth of the latter portions of the narration. Peters, from whom
some information might be expected, is still alive, and a resident of
Illinois, but cannot be met with at present. He may hereafter be found,
and will, no doubt, afford material for a conclusion of Mr. Pym's
account.

The loss of two or three final chapters (for there were but two or
three) is the more deeply to be regretted, as it can not be doubted they
contained matter relative to the Pole itself, or at least to regions in
its very near proximity; and as, too, the statements of the author in
relation to these regions may shortly be verified or contradicted by
means of the governmental expedition now preparing for the Southern
Ocean.

On one point in the narrative some remarks may well be offered; and it
would afford the writer of this appendix much pleasure if what he may
here observe should have a tendency to throw credit, in any degree, upon
the very singular pages now published. We allude to the chasms found in
the island of Tsalal, and to the whole of the figures upon pages 245-47
{of the printed edition--ed.}.

(Note: No figures were included with this text)

Mr. Pym has given the figures of the chasms without comment, and
speaks decidedly of the _indentures _found at the extremity of the
most easterly of these chasms as having but a fanciful resemblance to
alphabetical characters, and, in short, as being positively _not such.
_This assertion is made in a manner so simple, and sustained by a
species of demonstration so conclusive (viz., the fitting of the
projections of the fragments found among the dust into the indentures
upon the wall), that we are forced to b