THE SECRET OF THE NORTH POLE. Hf 



We turn now to those two paths along which arctic 

 exploration, properly so termed, has been most success- 

 fully pursued. 



It is chiefly to the expeditions of Drs. .Kane and 

 Hayes that we owe the important knowledge we have 

 respecting the northerly portions of the straits which 

 lie to the west of Greenland. Each of these explorers 

 succeeded in reaching the shores of an open sea lying 

 to the northeast of Kennedy Channel, the extreme 

 northerly limit of those straits. Hayes, who had ac- 

 companied Kane in the voyage of 1854'55, succeeded 

 in reaching a somewhat higher latitude in sledges 

 drawn by Esquimaux dogs. But both expeditions 

 agree in showing that the shores of Greenland trend 

 off suddenly toward the east at a point within some 

 nine degrees of the !N"orth Pole. On the other hand, 

 the prolongation of the opposite shore of Kennedy 

 Channel was found to extend northward as far as the 

 eye could reach. Within the angle thus formed there 

 was an open sea " rolling," says Captain Maury, " with 

 the swell of a bound]ess ocean." 



But a circumstance was noticed respecting this sea 

 which was very significant. The tides ebbed and 

 flowed in it. Only one fact we know of a fact to 

 be presently discussed throws so much light on the 

 question we are considering as this circumstance does. 

 Let us consider a little whence these tidal waves can 

 have come. 



