ELISHA KENT KANE. 



this period Captain Hearne had obtained a glimpse 

 of the Polar Sea, in 1771 ; and not long after, Cap- 

 tain MacKenzie discovered the river which flows 

 into that hyperborean gulf to which his own name 

 was given. These adventurers succeeded in ex- 

 ploring the eastern and western coasts of Greenland 

 as far as 75 !N". latitude. Hudson's Bay and Strait 

 had also been clearly traced by the intrepid navi- 

 gator of that name. But all the greater and more 

 perilous arcana of that vast world of frozen moun- 

 tains, seas, coasts, and headlands, still remained un- 

 invaded and unknown to the most resolute intruder. 

 "With the establishment of a European peace 

 the attention of the English Government was again 

 attracted to this subject. In 1818 Sir John Ross 

 achieved his first Arctic voyage in the ships " Isa- 

 bella" and " Alexander." No previous expedition 

 had ever been so fully equipped as this for the im- 

 portant purposes and arduous duties for which it was 

 intended. Captain Ross explored Smith's, Jones's, 

 and Lancaster Sounds, and made many valuable 

 observations and discoveries. In the same year 

 Captains Buchan and Franklin were sent out to 

 the coast of Spitzbergen in the "Dorothea" and 

 "Trent." This was the first Arctic voyage made by 

 that heroic commander whose labors and whose 

 mysterious fate have, during so many years, so 



