U FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [Aug 



was first visited by white men upon the arrival of mem- 

 bers of the Kane Expedition in 1854, who found some 

 ten or a dozen Eskimos encamped here. It was named 

 Foulke Fiord after WiUiam Parker Foulke, of Philadel- 

 phia, by Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes, who wintered in 1860- 

 61 at a small bight in the land just south of the entrance, 

 which he called Port Foulke. 



At the head of the fiord, which is four miles in length, 

 and separated from it only by a narrow neck of land, 

 lies Alida Lake, named after a friend of August Sonntag, 

 the astronomer of both the Kane and Hayes Expeditions. 

 Into Alida Lake dips Brother John's Glacier, so called 

 by Doctor Kane after his brother, John Kane, who 

 visited this spot in 1855 on the relief expedition. Etah 

 itself is a beautiful harbor, with its cliffs rising almost 

 from the water's edge to the height of 1,100 feet, and it 

 is one of the very few good harbors in North Greenland, 

 since it opens toward the southwest, a quarter from 

 which few gales ever come. 



Etah has played an important role in Arctic history. 

 Standing on the heights of the hills, we had before us 

 in panorama a complete picture of the struggle of the 

 last sixty -five years, a story of great endeavor, of hercu- 

 lean effort, of triumph over all obstacles, of victory 

 won; a story of disaster, of shattered hopes, of utter 

 defeat, starvation, and death. 



In August, 1852, the Isabel, under the command of 

 Capt. E. A. Inglefield, came around Cape Alexander, ten 

 miles to the south, and *' beheld the open sea stretching 

 through seven points of the compass." Bravely she 

 bore up, bucking into a heavy head sea and strong 

 northerly wind, but just above Etah she was compelled 

 to swing on her heel and drive rapidly south over the 



