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, aid 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.