LOSS OF THE "POLARIS." 269 



be associated, and it is a melancholy fact that he should not have lived to reap the honours and 

 rewards due to so much enterprise. The Polaris, a steam vessel of small power, and unadapted 

 for the Arctic seas, had been taken to a point which the finest vessels ever employed in the 

 exploration of the far north had previously failed in reaching. 



The death of Captain Hall threw the command of the Polaris on Captain Buddington. 

 In the second week of November, during a very heavy gale, the vessel dragged her anchors, 

 but at last brought up safely in the lee of a large iceberg aground in the bay. She was made 



THE iUNEKAL OF CAPTAIN HALL. 



fast to it, and remained in that position for some time. During the winter and spring she was 

 much damaged by the ice, and when she once more floated, in June, leaked badly. After- 

 sending out an expedition to Newman's Bay, during the progress of which one of the boats 

 was crushed like a nutshell by the grinding ice, Captain Buddington determined to sail for the 

 United States. On August 15th the Polaris was in a position so dangerous among the ice 

 that it was deemed necessary to place the boats with provisions on a large level floe, in order to 

 prepare for contingencies. A dark night came on, a gale arose, and the steamer drifted away 

 in an utterly unmanageable condition, her steam-pipes, valves, &c., being frozen up. For 

 hours they could not get up steam on board, while they had little coal, and the boats were on 

 the ice. 



The condition of those left in charge of the boats and stores on the ice was apparently 



