ELISHA KENT KANE. 35 



who had secured the favorable influence of Lord 

 Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty. His 

 squadron consisted of the "Racehorse" and the 

 "Carcass;" and although the commander was an 

 officer of great ability and resolution, such happened 

 at that time to be the peculiar and perilous condi- 

 tion of the Polar seas, that he found it impossible 

 to penetrate the immense wall of ice which stretched 

 between the latitude of eighty-one degrees to the 

 north of Spitzbergen. 



The Russian navigators have divided with those 

 of Great Britain the chief honors attendant upon 

 the exploration of the Arctic zone. In 1648 one of 

 the former, Admiral Deshnew, penetrated through 

 the Polar into the Pacific Ocean. In 1741 the in- 

 trepid Behring discovered the straits which now 



* 



bear his name and render it immortal. Captains 

 Tschischagoff, Vancouver, Billings, and Yon Wran- 

 gell were all celebrated Russian explorers, who, at 

 different periods and under various circumstances, 

 toiled heroically to force the colossal barriers which 

 seemed to conceal so jealously from the scrutiny of 

 man the secrets of that repulsive and inhospitable 

 realm. 



The wars which shook the continent of Europe 

 during Napoleon's prodigious career suspended for 

 a time all activity in Arctic research. Previous to 



