42 ELISIIA KENT KANE. 



and purchasing an additional stock of furs. This 

 place is the residence of the Danish Inspector of 

 Northern Greenland, and possesses one comfortable 

 residence. Dr. Kane succeeded in securing a 

 supply of seal-skins, which were afterward of great 

 and even of essential service to the members of the 

 expedition. He and his crew then returned to the 

 Advance, and on the 29th the two brigs resumed 

 their voyage, doubled the southwest cape of Disco, 

 and steered directly for the Pole. On the 3d of 

 July the vessels passed a lofty headland, called from 

 its appearance Black Head, in the neighborhood 

 of which the crews celebrated, on the ensuing day, 

 the national anniversary : but their solitary position 

 and the limited nature of their supplies made their 

 observance of it devoid of special interest. On the 

 6th they approached Upernavik, the last settlement 

 of Esquimaux to be found in those Northern realms. 

 They still sailed onward without serious obstruc- 

 tion, though frequently surrounded by floating ice- 

 bergs, until the 8th, when, at dawn of day, they 

 found themselves wedged fast in an immense sheet 

 of snow-covered ice. The vessels bore the singular 

 appearance of being locked in the centre of a dreary 

 and frozen ocean. 



During twenty-one days the brigs remained 

 imprisoned in the ice, unable to move in any direc- 



