CHAPTER XXI 



Dr. Kane's Famous Arctic Voyage 



THE search for the Sir John Franklin expedition was not con- 

 fined to Englishmen. Americans shared strongly in the 

 sympathy that in time grew world-wide, and a wealthy ship- 

 owner of New York, Henry Grinnell, fitted out a series of expedi- 

 tions with the object of joining in the search. One of these, that of 

 Dr. Kane, won a place among the most famous of polar expeditions. 

 The first American voyage for Arctic research, financed by Grinnell, 

 was under the command of Lieutenant Edwin J. De Haven, a Phila- 

 delphian who had served for years in the navy and had taken part 

 in the celebrated Wilkes expedition to the Antarctic seas. Picked 

 out by Grinnell as the best man he could find for the purpose, he 

 took with him a physician, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who was after- 

 wards to achieve distinction as a polar explorer for himself. 



De Haven left New York May 24, 1850, with two small sailing 

 vessels, the "Advance," of 140 tons, and the "Rescue," of but 90. 

 The tiny submarine "Plunger" has a displacement of 168 tons, and 

 the torpedo-boats of our navy average 200, so tfhat it can be 

 imagined with what frail cockleshells De Haven ventured into the 

 frozen North. As might have been expected, the ice-pack proved 

 an insurmountable obstacle to his little boats. They got no further 

 than the mouth of Wellington Channel, whence they drifted through 

 Lancaster Sound and down the western shore of Baffin's Bay, a 

 distance of more than a thousand miles. They did not shake them- 

 selves free from the enclogging ice until the i6th of June, 1851^ 

 when De Haven returned to New York. 



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