104 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



" The announcement of an open sea within the Arctic Ocean was 

 made in these words by Dr. Kane, after the return of his man Morton 

 from a sledge excui'sion in June, 1854: * It must have been an im- 

 posing sight, as he stood at this termination of *his journey, looking 

 out upon the great waste of waters before him. " Not a speck of ice," 

 to use his own words, " could be seen." There, from a height of four 

 hundred and eighty feet, which commanded a horizon of almost forty 

 miles, his ears were gladdened by the novel music of dashing waves ; 

 and a surf, breaking in among the rocks at his feet, stayed his further 

 progress.' * 



" The committee have quoted the eloquent language of Dr. Kane, 

 without stopping to inquire how much of this glowing description is to 

 be I'eferred to the enthusiasm of an explorer, and how much is to be 

 interpreted by a cool criticism at a distance from the scene of oper- 

 ations. 



" The question which it is expected may be settled by another 

 Arctic expedition is, whether the great ice-barrier, which, on some 

 meridians, and at some seasons, encroaches even upon the 48th parallel 

 of latitude, and which invests an area of six millions of square miles, 

 extends northwards to the pole ; or whether, beyond the limits of ex- 

 treme Arctic navigation, which leaves an unexplored surface of three 

 millions of square miles, there lies imprisoned in a zone of ice the 

 unfrozen waters of a polar sea. The conclusion of Dr. Kane, that the 

 latter was the true side of the alternative, was anticipated by that of a 

 Russian expedition on sledges in 1810, made upon an opposite merid- 

 ian to that which Kane travelled, and by that of Parry in 1827, upon 

 a third meridian. 



" The impression favorable to an open and navigable polar sea, 

 which was obtained on these occasions, based as it was upon a very 

 circumscribed experience, and prevented by stress of circumstances 

 from being pursued to verification, might seem to fall considerably 

 short of a rational belief, were it not, in the opinion of Dr. Hayes 

 and others, corroborated by various kinds of circumstantial evidence, 

 as follows : — 



" 1. By the presence of bird life, mostly marine, on what would be 

 the icy shores of this suspected sea, and which migrates northward in 

 spring. 



* Arctic Explorations in the Years 1853-54-55, by Dr. Elisha K. Kane, 

 Vol. I. p. 305. 



