158 LECTURE ON ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 



Professor Francis Lieber, and a remarkable peak which rose above my 

 last camp I have named in honor of the distinguished American artist, 

 Mr. F. E. Church. 



To the northward of Cape Lieber opened a magnificent bay, which 

 I regretted that I was not able to cross. This bay bears the name of 

 Lady Franklin. At its head rose two bold mountain peaks, which I 

 named Sylvia Mount and Mount Cornelius Grinnell. 



To the northward were seen Cape Beechy, another high cape be- 

 yond it, which I called Cape Frederick VII, after his Majesty the 

 King of Denmark, to whose subjects in Greenland I was indebted for 

 many favors, and, in the far distance, I could trace the faint outlines 

 of a magnificent headland, the most northern known land on the 

 globe. This land I named Cape Union. 



Returning upon the same track, we reached the vessel after an ab- 

 sence of fifty-nine days, during which time we had travelled in our 

 various goings and comings about 1,400 miles. During this period 

 we used for our nightly halt the snow hut of the Esquimaux. 



The personal equipment of each member of the party weighed only 

 eight pounds. Upon my return to Port Foulke only seven of my dogs 

 remained alive, and these were so much broken that further explora- 

 tions for the season, Avith dog sledge, were rendered impracticable. 



The physical conditions observed in Kennedy channel are, per- 

 haps, among the most important of my results. It was in that chan- 

 nel, and to the northward of it, as I have before observed, that Mor- 

 ton discovered an open sea late in June, 1854. I did not find open 

 water, but the ice was everywhere much decayed, often being so thin 

 that it would not bear my party; and in some places pools of water 

 were visible. In one of these pools a flock of waterfowl, the Uria 

 gryllae, were discovered. My stay in Kennedy channel was from the 

 12th to the 23d of May, a period of the year six weeks earlier than 

 that at which the observations of Morton had been made; and I en- 

 tertain no doubt that, could I have returned to the same locality in 

 the latter part of June, I would have found the sea open. Indeed, 

 everything indicated a speedy dissolution of the ice. There were 

 some indications also that the region to the northward is annually 

 open. I will mention one which struck me most prominently. The 

 coast on the west side of Kennedy channel, especially where exposed 

 to the northeast, was lined with a heavy ridge of ice, which had been 

 forced up under the influence of great pressure. Many of the masses 

 were as much as sixty feet in height, and they were lying high and 

 dry upon the beach. The pressure necessary to occasion this result 

 could not possibly be created by ice-fields moving over a narrow chan- 

 nel, and I believe the result to have been produced by ice-fields of 

 great extent coming down under the influence of winds and the cur- 

 rent from a vast open area to the northward. 



The summer was passed in the conduct of such explorations and 

 surveys as could be made in the immediate vicinity of Port Foulke. 

 The established routine of observations was continued at the vessel, 

 and in addition a delicate tidal apparatus was constructed, the read- 

 ings of which were made to tenths of a foot, and at intervals of ten 



