3 o8 HAYES, HALL AND OTHER ADVENTURERS 



o'clock in the morning that he died. Assisted in preparing the 

 grave, which is nearly half a mile from the ship, inland; but the 

 ground was so frozen that it was necessarily very shallow even 

 with picks it was scarcely possible to break it up." 



On the nth he wrote: "At half-past eleven this morning we 

 placed all that was mortal of our late commander in the frozen 

 ground. Even at that hour of the day it was almost dark, and I 

 had to hold a lantern for Mr. Bryan to read the papers. It was a 

 gloomy day and well befitting the event. The place also was gloomy 

 and desolate in the extreme." 



Thus ended Hall's ambitious project of conquering the secret 

 of the North Pole; and thus was quenched the enthusiasm of a 

 singularly ardent nature. Though better fitted for a volunteer than 

 a leader, to act alone than to govern others, he undertook his work 

 with a boundless energy and an untiring perseverance; and had he 

 lived, it is certain he would have advanced as far to the northward 

 as man is able to go. We cannot but regret so sudden and dis- 

 astrous a termination of a chivalrous enterprise. Yet there is some- 

 thing appropriate in his place of burial ; and that lonely grave amid 

 the peaks and icebergs of the Polar World is surely a more suitable 

 sepulchre for such a dauntless explorer than one in the crowded city 

 cemetery, or even the village churchyard. On no man was thg, 

 strange magical spell of the North more powerfully laid than on 

 Charles Francis Hall; and it is well that he should sleep where the 

 cold northern winds blow across his grave, and the weird radiance 

 of the aurora falls upon it. 



Fortunate as had been the northward passage of the "Polaris," 

 through easy channels and open seas, on her return in the summer 

 of 1872 the ice demon lay in wait for her and played havoc with the 

 gallant ship. Caught in the floes off the southern entrance of Ken- 

 nedy Channel, in latitude 80 degrees, the vessel drifted southward 

 in the ice to 78 degrees 28 minutes. Here a furious gale assailed 

 her, the grinding ice crushing in her strong sides until the crew 



