A handwritten journal kept by an officer on the British Arctic Expedition of 1875-1876 could make £100,000-150,000 ($156,629-234,943) at Bonhams.

The lot is among the highlights of an auction of books and manuscripts in London on June 24.

Commander Albert Markham kept the Arctic journal

Written by Commander Albert Hastings Markham, it features various watercolour and ink drawings. On his return to Britain it was published as The Great Frozen Sea (1878).

He writes at one point: "It is a perfect treat to be again sitting at my writing table in my cosy little cabin, for although I have not been long away from the ship, still in the period we were absent, we have encountered work of no ordinary description and have endured, I might almost say sufferings, of a nature that we had hitherto not anticipated, but I must not anticipate, but relate events as they occurred...

"I have had my first sledging experience, and find that it is no easy matter to keep a journal with a temperature down nearly to zero, or in a gale of wind, but I intend writing it here verbatim, without altering a word or sentence".

Led by George Nares, the expedition trekked to the far north in order to disprove the theory of an open polar sea.

We have this intimate letter from legendary polar explorer Ernest Shackleton to his wife for sale.

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