236 SMITH SOUND 



to say he found no Franklin traces, although he really 

 looked for them. 



Twelve months afterwards Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in 

 the United States brig Advance followed in his track 

 and wintered in Rensselaer Harbour, nine miles further 

 north. Ostensibly Kane was on a Franklin search, but 

 his real object was the Pole. He explored the sea 

 named after him, naming many landmarks, not always 

 placing them in their true positions, and underwent 

 many hardships. For one mistake he was famous for 

 a time, and his reputation now suffers. One of his ex- 

 pedition, William Morton, almost reached Cape Consti- 

 tution, in about 80|, which he placed some sixty 

 miles too far north, and described as the corner of the 

 north coast of Greenland ; and from the southern horn 

 of the bay of which it is the northern boundary he 

 looked out over the south of Kennedy Channel, which 

 is open every summer, and mistook it for the Polar 

 Sea. And he returned with a report of an even more 

 wonderful discovery than the Polar Sea, for, according 

 to the illustration, he beheld the midnight sun dipping 

 in its waters on Midsummer Day. 



In May, 1854, the month before Morton's discoveries, 

 Dr. Hayes and William Godfrey crossed the Kane Sea 

 to connect the northern coast with Inglefield's survey, 

 " but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit from 

 the bay," being, in fact, Ellesmere Land continued, and 

 yet on reaching the shore for the first time at Hayes 

 Point, three miles north of Cape Louis Napoleon, and 

 following it for two miles to Cape Frazer, they quite 

 unnecessarily named the country Grinnell Land. On 

 the other side of this sea the chief discovery was 



