96 ELISHA KENT KANE. 



ascend these cliffs, but found it impossible to mount 

 more than a few hundred feet. On the highest point 

 which they attained a walking-pole was fastened, 

 with the Grinnell flag of the Antarctic attached to it ; 

 and thus for an hour and a half this standard was 

 permitted to wave over the highest northern region 

 of the earth ever attained by the foot of man. 



They here encountered a cape ; and the party de- 

 sired to pass around it, in order to ascertain whether 

 there lay any unknown land beyond. But they 

 found it impossible to advance. This, then, was the 

 utmost limit, the ultima thule of their journey toward 

 the Pole. Morton ascended an eminence here and 

 carefully scrutinized the aspects of nature around 

 Ijm. Six degrees toward the west of north he ob- 

 served a lofty peak, truncated in its form and about 

 three thousand feet in height. This elevation is 

 named Mount Edward Parry, after the great pio- 

 neer of Arctic adventure, and is the most extreme 

 northern point of land known to exist upon the 

 globe. From the position which Morton had at- 

 tained, he beheld toward the north, from an elevation 

 of four hundred feet, a boundless waste of waters 

 stretching away toward the Pole. "Not a particle of 

 ice encumbered its surface. He now heard the multi- 

 tudinous murmur of unfrozen waves, and beheld a 

 rolling surf, like that of more genial climes, rushing 



