CHAPTER XII. 



1ECOND GRINNELL EXPEDITION. DR. KANE'S PLAN. DEPARTURE. IH 



THE ICE. SEARCH FOR A HARBOR. FROZEN IN. TEMPERATURE. 



INCIDENTS. LOSS OF DOGS. DISASTROUS SLEDGING-PARTY. THS 



RESCUE. MEETING WITH ESQUIMAUX. DISCOVERIES. ATTEMPT TO 



REACH BELCHER'S SQUADRON. ANOTHER WINTER. PRIVATION AND 

 PERIL. ABANDONMENT OF THE VESSEL. FAREWELL TO THE ESQUI- 

 MAUX. IN SAFETY. REPORT TO NAVY DEPARTMENT. THE OPEN 



POLAR SEA. CHARACTER OF DR. KANE'S ADVENTURES. HIS PUBLISHED 

 NARRATIVE. 



THE expedition under the command of Dr. Kane 

 sailed from New York on the 30th of May, 1853. It 

 consisted of eighteen chosen men, besides the com- 

 mander, embarked in a small brig of one hundred and 

 forty-four tons burden, named the Advance, which was 

 furnished by Mr. Grinnell, other expenses being con- 

 tributed by Mr. Peabody and several generous indi- 

 viduals and societies. Dr. Kane's predetermined course 

 was to enter the strait discovered the previous year 

 by Captain Inglefield, at the top of Baffin's Bay, and 

 to push as far northward through it as practicable. He 

 engaged the services of a native Esquimaux, of the 

 name of Hans Christenseu, at Fiskernaes, in Greenland, 

 and then crossed Melville Bay in the wake of the vast 

 icebergs with which the sea is there strewn. These 

 huge frozen masses are often driven one way by a deep 

 current, while the floes are drifted in another by winds 

 and surface-streams, disruptions being thus necessarily 

 caused in the vast ice-fields. The doctor's tactics were 



