Note: Translated by Cashel Hoey and edited and abridged - presumably by Vincent Parke. This translation begins: "No doubt the following narrative will be received with entire incredulity, but I think it well that the public should be put in possession of the facts narrated in "An Antarctic Mystery." The public is free to believe them or not, at its good pleasure. I am a Connecticut naturalist possessed of a small independent fortune. In the year 1839 I was engaged in research work among the islands of the far southern ocean."