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III. 



ON THE DISCOVERIES OF DR. E. K. KANE, u.s.a. 



(1853-55). 



By Dr. Kink, Director of The Eoyal Greenland Board of Trade, and 

 formerly Inspector in Greenland for the Danish Government. 1 



The author of the work above quoted makes the following remark 

 in the Introduction : " This book is not a record of scientific inves- 

 tigations ;" and adds, that his aim has been to publish a narrative 

 of the adventures of his fellow travellers, and that he has attempted 

 very little else. Nevertheless, on perusing this promised " simple 

 story " of a voyage, we find it embellished with scientific theoi'ies 

 extending far beyond the bounds of such a narrative. As these 

 speculations relate to a subject, the examination of which has 

 occupied me during nine years, namely, the Physical Geography 

 of Greenland, I feel called on to subject them to a somewhat closer 

 inquiry. As his richly and elegantly illustrated work has awakened 

 great sensation, nay even partly placed the other Polar expeditions 

 in the shade, I am led to think that a communication of my views 

 respecting this matter will not be entirely without interest to the 

 Society. 



It is well known that the active and undaunted American tra- 

 veller, Dr. Kane, unfortunately so early carried off, attempted, in 

 the year 1853, to go farther north up Smith Sound than Captain 

 Inglefield, the year previously, had done ; but that he only suc- 

 ceeded in taking his ship a trifling distance farther than Ingle- 

 field ; that he was then frozen in, lost his ship, and in the year 

 1855 saved himself and party by returning, in boats, to the Danish 

 colony of Upernivik. From his two years' winter quarters in Van 

 Benssellaer Bay, on the east side of the Sound, he, by the help of 

 dog and drag sledges, undertook expeditions in different directions, 

 partly across to the American side, but mainly along the coast, 

 pursuing it northward, to find, if possible, the northern end of 

 Greenland. 



1 From the ' Journal of the Eoyal Geographical Society,' Vol. xxviii. 



