KANE'S OPEN SEA, 359 



then Dr. Kane's. The latter's vessel could not be 

 forced further into the ice than Van Rensselaer Har- 

 bor ; and, like the Russians, he continued the work 

 with sledges. After many embarrassments and fail- 

 ures in his attempts to surmount the difficulties pre- 

 sented by hummocked ice of the Sound, one of his 

 parties succeeded finally in reaching the predicted 

 open water ; and, to quote Dr. Kane's words, " from 

 an elevation of five hundred and eighty feet, this water 

 was still without a limit, moved by a heavy swell, free 

 of ice, and dashing in surf against a rock-bound 

 shore." This shore was the shore of the land which 

 he named Washington Land. 



Next, after Dr. Kane's, came my own undertaking ; 

 and the last chapter leaves me with my sledge upon 

 the shores of that same sea which Dr. Kane describes, 

 about one hundred miles to the north and west of the 

 point from which one of his parties looked out upon 

 the iceless waters. My own opinion of what I saw 

 and of the condition of this sea, which Wrangel found 

 open on the opposite side from where I stood, and 

 which Kane's party had found open to my right, and 

 which Parry's journey showed to be open above 

 Spitzbergen, may be inferred from what I have al- 

 ready briefly stated, and may be more briefly con- 

 cluded. 



The boundaries of the Polar Basin are sufficiently 

 well defined to enable us to form a rational estimate 

 of the unknown coast-lines of Greenland and Grin- 

 nell Land, — the only parts of the extensive circuit 

 remaining unexplored. The trend of the northern 

 coast-line of Greenland is approximately defined by 

 the reasonable analogies of physical geography ; and 

 the same process of reasoning forbids the conclusior 



