A GRAND SIGHT. 191 



After skinning the old one they gashed its body, 

 and the dogs fed upon it ravenously. The little 

 one they cached for themselves against their re- 

 turn. 



This little fight quite knocked up Hans the 

 Esquimaux, Morton therefore advanced alone, in the 

 hope of being able to get beyond a huge cape that 

 lay before him. On reaching it, the grand sight 

 of an apparently boundless ocean of open water met 

 his eye. Only " four or five small pieces " of ice 

 were seen on the glancing waves of this hitherto 

 unknown sea. " Viewed from the cliffs," writes 

 Dr. Kane, " and taking thirty-six miles as the 

 mean radius open to reliable survey, this sea had 

 a justly-estimated extent of more than 4000 square 

 miles." 



Here, then, in all probability, is the great Arctic 

 Ocean that has been supposed to exist in a per- 

 petually fluid state round the pole, encircled by a 

 ring of ice that has hitherto presented an impene- 

 trable barrier to all the adventurers of ancient and 

 modern times. There were several facts connected 

 with this discovery that go far to prove that this 

 ocean is perpetually open. 



Further south, where Dr. Kane's brig lay in ice 

 that seemed never to melt, there were few signs of 

 .animal life only a seal or two now and then ; 

 but here, on the margin of this far northern sea, were 

 rc yriads of water-fowl of various kinds. 



u The "Brent goose," writes the Doctor, " had not 



