ELISHA KENT KANE. 33 



Muost distinguished citizens of Philadelphia, rightly 

 judging that some honorary memorial of his gallant 

 services was due, presented him with a handsome 

 sword, as an evidence of their high appreciation of 

 his short but brilliant military career. 



In the year 1849 Dr. Kane made a voyage in the 

 store-ship "Supply" to the Mediterranean. During 

 this trip, as if to furnish him with a general variety 

 and assortment of bodily ailments, he suffered an 

 attack of lockjaw. He bled himself profusely, and, 

 by so doing, prolonged his life. He returned home, 

 and spent a large portion of the year 1850 in at- 

 tempts to recruit his shattered health, partly in hia 

 native State and partly beneath the more genial sky 

 of a Southern clime. During this period a subject 

 admirably adapted to enlist the profoundest interest 

 of a person possessing his peculiar qualities and 

 temperament was deeply engaging the public atten- 

 tion. Several hundreds of British seamen had been 

 enveloped and lost amid the eternal snows of the 

 Polar clime ; and their rescue from death, or the 

 discovery of their fate if dead, became an enterprise 

 which excited the admiring sympathy of the civilized 

 world. Would it be possible for Elisha Kent Kane 

 to view such a theme and such a purpose with cold 

 indifference ? 



The discovery of a passage to the East Indies by 

 C 



