The Author of this work, and of the discoveries which it relates, leaves it to his readers to decide whether he excels most as a navigator or a writer, and whether he amuses as much as he instructs. If he has any professional vanity, arising from his enterprises upon the sea, it does not tempt him to conceal that, in the achievements here recorded, he availed himself of all the lights and facilities afforded by the sublime theory of an internal world, published by Captain John Cleve Symmes, and by the application of steam to the navigation of vessels, for which the world is indebted to Fulton. Far from coveting what does not belong to himself, he feels, after having discovered and explored a world before unknown, that he can well afford to bestow on others the praise to which they are entitled. He has one consolation, in which he is confident of the sympathy of those who wish him well; namely, that if the book is not bought and read, it will not be because it is not an American book. He gives notice that he has no intention to relinquish his right to the invention of oblique paddles for steam ships, though the circumstances narrated at the close of the volume hinder him from taking out a patent at present.