this work of piety, for in the summer of 1857 the floating ice off Melville Bay, on the coast of Greenland, seized the "Fox," and after a dreary winter, various narrow escapes, and eight months of imprisonment, carried her back nearly 1200 geographical miles, even to 63° N. lat. in the Atlantic.

At length, on April 25, 1858, the "Fox" got free, and, having availed herself of the scanty stores and provisions which the small Danish settlement of Holstenburg afforded, sailed into Barrow Strait. Finding Franklin Channel obstructed with ice, she then turned back, and steaming up Prince Regent's Inlet, arrived at the eastern opening of Bellot's Strait. Here the passage to the west was again found blocked with ice, and after five ineffectual attempts to pass, the "Fox" at length took up her winter-quarters in Port Kennedy, on the northern side of the strait.

On his first sledge excursion in the following spring, M'Clintock met at Cape Victoria, on the south-west coast of Boothia, with a party of Esquimaux, who informed him that some years back a large ship had been crushed by the ice out in the sea to the west of King William's Island, but that all the people landed safely.

Meeting with the same Esquimaux on April 20, he learned, after much anxious inquiry, that besides the ship which had been seen to sink in deep water, a second one had been forced on shore by the ice, where they supposed it still remained, but much broken. They added that it was in the fall of the year— that is, August or September-when the ships were destroyed; that all the white people went away to the Great Fish River, taking a boat or boats with them, and that in the following winter their bones were found there.

These first indications of the fate of Franklin's expedition were soon followed by others. On May 7 M'Clintock heard from an old Esquimaux woman on King William's Island that many of the white men dropped by the way as they went to the Great River; that some were buried, and some were not. They did not themselves witness this, but discovered their bodies during the winter following.

Visiting the shore along which the retreating crews must have marched, he came, shortly after midnight of May 25, when slowly walking along a gravel ridge near the beach, which the winds kept partially bare of snow, upon a human skeleton, partly exposed, with here and there a few fragments of clothing appearing through the snow.

“A most careful examination of the spot," says M'Clintock, "was of course made, the snow removed, and every scrap of clothing gathered up. A pocketbook, which being frozen hard could not be examined on the spot, afforded strong grounds for hope that some information might be subsequently obtained respecting the owner, and the march of the lost crews. The victim was a young man, slightly built, and perhaps above the common height; the dress appeared to be that of a steward. The poor man seems to have selected the bare ridge top, as affording the least tiresome walking, and to have fallen upon his face in the position in which we found him. It was a melancholy truth that the old woman spake when she said, "They fell down and died as they walked along.""

Meanwhile Lieutenant Hobson, who was exploring with another sledge party the north-western coast of King William's Land, had made the still more important discovery of a record giving a laconic account of the Franklin expedition up to the time when the ships were lost and abandoned. It was found on May 6 in a large cairn at Point Victory. It stated briefly that in 1845 the "Erebus" and "Terror" had ascended Wellington Channel to lat. 77°, and returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island to Beechey Island, where they spent the first winter. In 1846 they proceeded to the south-west, through Peel Sound and Franklin Sound, and eventually reached within twelve miles of the north extremity of King William's Land, when their progress was arrested by the ice. Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847, having completed-two months before his death-the sixty-first year of an active, eventful, and honorable life. On April 22, 1848, the ships were deserted, having been beset since September 12, 1846. The officers and crew, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain Crozier, landed with the intention of starting for Back's Fish River, which, as we have seen, they were never destined to reach.

Quantities of clothing and articles of all kinds were found lying about the cairn, as if these men, aware that they were retreating for their lives, had then abandoned every thing which they considered superfluous.

Thus all doubts about Sir John Franklin's fate were at length removed. He at least had died on board his ship, and been spared the miserable end of his comrades as they fell one by one in the dreary wilderness.

The two wrecks have disappeared without leaving a trace behind. A single document, some coins and pieces of plate-this is all that remains of the gallant ships which so hopefully sailed forth under one of the noblest seamen that ever served in the navy of Great Britain.

It is a curious circumstance that Franklin's ships perished within sight of the headlands named Cape Franklin and Cape Jane Franklin by their discov erer, Sir James Ross, eighteen years before.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

KANE AND HAYES.

Kane sails up Smith's Sound in the "Advance" (1853).-Winters in Rensselaer Bay.-Sledge Journey along the Coast of Greenland. - The Three-brother Turrets.-Tennyson's Monument.-The Great Humboldt Glacier.-Dr. Hayes crosses Kennedy Channel. Morton's Discovery of Washington Land.—Mount Parry.—Kane resolves upon a second Wintering in Rensselaer Bay.—Departure and Return of Part of the Crew.-Sufferings of the Winter.-The Ship abandoned.-Boat Journey to Upernavik.-Kane's Death in the Havana (1857).-Dr. Hayes's Voyage in 1860.-He winters at Port Foulke.-Crosses Kennedy Channel.-Reaches Cape Union, the most northern known Land upon the Globe.-Koldewey.-Plans for future Voyages to the North Pole.

IN

N point of dramatic interest, few of the Arctic expeditions can rival the second and last voyage of Dr. Kane, which, to avoid interrupting the narrative of the discovery of Franklin's fate by Dr. Rae and Sir James M'Clintock, I have refrained from mentioning in chronological order.

Weak in body, but great in mind, this remarkable man, who had accompanied the first Grinnell expedition in the capacity of surgeon, sailed from Boston in 1853, as commander of the " Advance," with a crew of 17 officers and men, to which two Greenlanders were subsequently added. His plan was to pass up Baffin's Bay to its most northern attainable point, and thence pressing on towards the pole as far as boats or sledges could reach, to examine the coastlines for vestiges of Franklin.

Battling with storms and icebergs, he passed, on August 7, 1853, the rocky portals of Smith's Sound, Cape Isabella and Cape Alexander, which had been discovered the year before by Inglefield; left Cape Hatherton-the extreme. point attained by that navigator-behind, and after many narrow escapes from shipwreck, secured the "Advance" in Rensselaer Bay, from which she was destined never to emerge. His diary gives us a vivid account of the first winter he spent in this haven, in lat. 78° 38', almost as far to the north as the most northern extremity of Spitzbergen, and in a far more rigorous climate.

"Sept. 10, +14° F.-The birds have left. The sea-swallows, which abounded when we first reached here, and even the young burgomasters that lingered .after them, have all taken their departure for the south. The long "night in which no man can work" is close at hand; in another month we shall lose the sun. Astronomically, he should disappear on October 24, if our horizon were free; but it is obstructed by a mountain ridge; and, making all allowance for refraction, we can not count on seeing him after the 10th.

"Sept. 11.-The long staring day, which has clung to us for more than two months, to the exclusion of the stars, has begun to intermit its brightness. Even Aldebaran, the red eye of the bull, flared out into familiar recollection as early as ten o'clock; and the heavens, though still somewhat reddened by the gaudy tints of midnight, gave us Capella and Arcturus, and even that lesser

light of home memories, the polar star. Stretching my neck to look uncomfortably at the indication of our extreme northernness, it was hard to realize that he was not directly overhead; and it made me sigh as I measured the few degrees of distance that separated our zenith from the pole over which he hung. “Oct. 28.—The moon has reached her greatest northern declination of about 25° 35'. She is a glorious object; sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest part of her curve, she is still 14° above the horizon. For eight days she has been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness. It is one of those sparkling nights that bring back the memory of sleigh-bells and songs, and glad communings of hearts in lands that are far away.

"Nov. 7.-The darkness is coming on with insidious steadiness, and its advances can only be perceived by comparing one day with its fellow of some time back. We still read the thermometer at noonday without a light, and the black masses of the hills are plain for about five hours, with their glaring patches of snow; but all the rest is darkness. The stars of the sixth magnitude shine out at noonday. Except upon the island of Spitzbergen, which has the advantages of an insular climate, and tempered by ocean currents, no Christians have wintered in so high a latitude as this.* They are Russian sailors who made the encounter there-men inured to hardships and cold. Our darkness has ninety days to run before we shall get back again even to the contested twilight of to-day. Altogether our winter will have been sunless for one hundred and forty days.

3

"Nov. 9.-Wishing to get the altitude of the cliffs on the south-west cape of our bay before the darkness set in thoroughly, I started in time to reach them with my Newfoundlanders at noonday, the thermometer indicating 23° below zero. Fireside astronomers can hardly realize the difficulties in the way of observations at such low temperatures. The breath, and even the warmth of the face and body, cloud the sextant-arc and glasses with a fine hoar-frost. It is, moreover, an unusual feat to measure a base-line in the snow at 55° below freezing.

“Nov. 21.—We have schemes innumerable to cheat the monotonous solitude of our winter-a fancy ball; a newspaper,' The Ice Blink;' a fox-chase round the decks.

“Dec. 15.—We have lost the last vestige of our midday twilight. We can not see print, and hardly paper; the fingers can not be counted a foot from the eyes. Noonday and midnight are alike; and, except a vague glimmer in the sky that seems to define the hill outlines to the south, we have nothing to. tell us that this Arctic world of ours has a sun. In the darkness, and consequent inaction, it is almost in vain that we seek to create topics of thought, and, by a forced excitement, to ward off the encroachments of disease.

"Jan. 21.-First traces of returning light, the southern horizon having for a short time a distinct orange tinge.

"Feb. 21.—We have had the sun for some days silvering the ice between the headlands of the bay, and to-day, towards noon, I started out to be the

* Rensselaer Harbor is situated 1° 46′ higher than Sir E. Belcher's winter-quarters in Northumberland Sound, 76° 52'.

first of my party to welcome him back. It was the longest walk and toughest climb that I have had since our imprisonment, and scurvy and general debility have made me 'short o' wind.' But I managed to attain my object. I saw him once more, and upon a projecting crag nestled in the sunshine. It was like bathing in perfumed water."

Thus this terrible winter night drew to its end, and the time came for undertaking the sledge journeys, on which the success of the expedition mainly depended. Unfortunately, of the nine magnificent Newfoundlanders and the thirty-five Esquimaux dogs originally possessed by Kane, only six had survived an epizootic malady which raged among them during the winter: their number was, however, increased by some new purchases from the Esquimaux who visited the ship at the beginning of April.

He

Thus scantily provided with the means of transport, Kane, though in a very weak condition, set out on April 25, 1854, to force his way to the north. found the Greenland coast beyond Rensselaer Bay extremely picturesque, the cliffs rising boldly from the shore-line to a height of sometimes more than a thousand feet, and exhibiting every freak and caprice of architectural ruin. In one spot the sloping rubbish at the foot of the coast-wall led up, like an artificial causeway, to a gorge that was streaming at noonday with the southern sun, while everywhere else the rock stood out in the blackest shadow. Just at the edge of this bright opening rose the dreamy semblance of a castle, flanked with triple towers, completely isolated and defined. These were called the "Threebrother Turrets."

“Farther on, to the north of latitude 79°, a single cliff of greenstone rears itself from a crumbled base of sandstone, like the boldly-chiselled rampart of an ancient city. At its northern extremity, at the brink of a deep ravine which has worn its way among the ruins, there stands a solitary column or minaret tower, as sharply finished as if it had been cast for the Place Vendôme. Yet the length of the shaft alone is 480 feet, and it rises on a pedestal, itself 280 feet high. I remember well the emotions of my party, as it first broke upon our view. Cold and sick as I was, I brought back a sketch of it which may have interest for the reader, though it scarcely suggests the imposing dignity of this magnificent landmark. Those who are happily familiar with the writings of Tennyson, and have communed with his spirit in the solitudes of a wilderness, will apprehend the impulse that inscribed the scene with his name."

But no rock formation, however striking or impressive, equalled in grandeur the magnificent glacier to which Kane has given the name of Humboldt. Its solid glassy wall, diminishing to a well-pointed wedge in the perspective, rises 300 feet above the water-level, with an unknown, unfathomable depth below it and its curved face sixty miles in length-from Cape Agassiz to Cape Forbes —vanishes into unknown space at not more than a single day's railroad travel from the pole.

In spite of the snow, which had so accumulated in drifts that the travellers were forced to unload their sledges and carry forward the cargo on their backs, beating a path for the dogs to follow in, Kane came in sight of the Great Gla