LECTURE 



ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS 



^T DR. I. I. HAYES, 



COMM.VNDEK OF THE LATE AMEEICAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



I APPEAR before you, iu obedience to an invitation with which I 

 have been honored by the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 to give an account of my late expedition to the Arctic seas. That 

 expedition, some of you may remember, sailed from Boston in July, 

 1860, and returned to the same port in October, 1861. Before pass- 

 ing to my narrative, a brief statement of the objects of the expedition 

 may not be out of place. 



It was my good fortune to have sailed in 1853 with the lamented 

 Dr. Kane, as surgeon of his expedition, and I remained in that ser- 

 vice until late in 1855. Upon my return to the United States I 

 formed the plan of another expedition. There were many circum- 

 stances of discouragement, not least among which was an impression 

 which then had possession of the public mind, that any further efforts 

 toward the North Pole must be fruitless, and must involve an unjus- 

 tifiable exposure of life. It was only after many endeavors that here. 

 and there the influences favorable to my design began to affect the 

 community. The most important of these was, of course, the sanction 

 given to my plans by those associations by whose opinions the mass 

 of men are governed in relation to scientific matters; and it gives 

 me pleasure that I am to-night enabled, on a public occasion like the 

 present, to express my acknowledgments to the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion for the liberal support which was rendered by it to the expedi- 

 tion, not only by its contribution of scientific apparatus, but through 

 the encouragement which was given towards effecting its organiza- 

 tion by the influence of the distinguished gentleman who is the prin- 

 cipal executive officer of the establishment. To this approval of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, so widely known and respected, were added 

 that of the American Philosophical Society, the Geographical Society 

 of New York, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 and the assistance and encouragement of individuals, among whom 

 the renowned head of the coast survey, Dr. Bache, was the most con- 

 spicuous. Yet, in spite of the efforts made in many quarters, my outfit 

 was a very small one. My original plan embraced two vessels, one 

 a small steamer, and the other a schooner, the latter to be placed in 

 a convenient harbor, near the mouth of Smith strait, and the former 

 to be used for penetrating the ice to the northward; but to obtain so 

 large an organization as this plan involved was found to bo impracti- 



