LESSON 3.

STORIES OF ARCTIC

EXPLORATIONS.

III. DR. KANE AND DR. HAYES.

With a noble generosity and true philanthropic spirit, Mr. Grinnell, a New York merchant, in 1853 fitted out once more his brig Advance, and placed it under the command of Dr. Elisha Kane, whom we noticed a few pages before as 'the mad Yankee.' His company counted only eighteen officers and men, including Dr. Hayes the surgeon, who played a conspicuous part in a subsequent expedition as well as in this. You will remember that Kane had a strong opinion that poor Franklin had pushed his way into the Polar Sea by way of Wellington Channel; and, believing that the coast of Greenland extended far to the north, he determined to sail as high as possible to the north of Baffin Bay, and then to seek for the lost explorers still farther north by means of boats and sledges. By looking at a

good map as you follow the course of this story, you will see the additions to geographical knowledge for which we are indebted to this singularly bold enterprise of Dr. Kane.

After calling at a Danish settlement (Fiskerness)

for fifty dogs and a native driver, the difficulties of the expedition may be said to have begun when the ship entered Melville Bay. This bay is noted not only for the number, but for the gigantic size of its icebergs. Many a good ship, after a successful capture, has been caught itself, and crushed like

a band-box between two enormous masses of ice. By patience and skill he managed to clear a passage, and passing between Capes Alexander and Isabella, entered Smith Sound. At Littleton Island he established his first cache, or depot for stores, to use on his return journey. To prevent them from being dug up by the claws of the Arctic fox or Polar bear, the lifeboat was stored with provisions, blankets, etc., then buried, and covered over with stones and moss and snow to the height of several feet; over all this water was poured, so as to convert the whole into one solid frozen mass. And yet,

with all this care and precaution, many explorers have found these caches rifled of their contents by the strength and ingenuity of the Polar bear. On this island, to their astonishment, they found some human remains; proving at once they were not the first dwellers in this far north land. The burying customs of the Eskimos (for so the natives in this part are called, those in the south being Greenlanders) are somewhat curious, and worth a passing notice. The ground is too hard for graves, with their rude implements, and so they place their dead in a sitting posture, and enclose them in a sack of skins; they then place stones around and above them, where they remain from age to age.

Proceeding still north, Kane found a shelter for some time in a small bay which he called Refuge Harbour. Several sledge journeys from here resulted in the discovery of a large river fed by an interior glacier, and several headlands, which he named, but which are not important. In September he had steered his ship as far as Renssalaer Harbour, where he resolved to winter, and not a moment too soon; the winter came on so rapidly that in a few hours they were completely frozen in. In less

than a month the sun had almost disappeared; a faint light of the stars, and an occasional gleam from the aurora borealis, being their only light until February-four long dreary months of night. During the winter most of the dogs died, and the men suffered from scurvy, owing to the want of fresh meat. With the returning sun in February, several sledges were sent on in advance to establish depots, so that explorations could be carried on with vigour. Dr. Kane's journal is full of interesting particulars, but our space will only permit us to glance at his main discoveries.

With seven of his men he followed up the icebelt and discovered the Great Glacier, which is called after the illustrious German traveller, Humboldt. Glaciers may be briefly described as rivers of ice, some of them of immense magnitude, formed in valleys and ravines. Fancy to yourselves some mighty torrent frozen suddenly in its course, and you will have a fair idea of a glacier. Moving slowly downwards towards the coast, the fore part continually breaks off by its own weight, and floats away into the sea as icebergs (i.e. mountains) or as ice-floes (i.e. islands). Dr. Kane says 'it is impossible to convey in words any adequate idea of this mighty glacier. Its curved face measures 60 miles in length, and presents a grand wall or front of glistening ice, kindled here and there into dazzling glory by the sun. Its form is that of a wedge, the apex lying inland, at perhaps "not more than a single day's railroad travel from the Pole." Thus it passes away into the centre of the Greenland continent, which is occupied by one deep unbroken sea of ice, 1200 miles in length, that receives a perpetual increase from the watershed of vast snowmantled mountains. A frozen sea, yet a sea in

constant motion, rolling onward slowly, laboriously, yet surely, to find an outlet at each fiord or valley, and to load the seas of Greenland and the Atlantic with mighty icebergs, until, having attained the northern limit of the land, it pours out a mighty congealed torrent into the unknown Arctic space.'

This journey was full of dangers, and nearly ended fatally for Dr. Kane. It effectually termi

nated his search in this direction, so he planned his future sledge parties in the direction of north and west. Dr. Hayes and a seaman succeeded in crossing the channel, and explored the coast for a distance of 200 miles southwards; then crossed the ice at Franklin Pierce Bay, and made their return by the ice-belt to the ship in Renssalaer Harbour. This ice-belt, which has been mentioned several times, is a belt of ice which in Arctic regions clings to the