92 MORTON'S FARTHEST. 



With this, the exploration of the open Polar Sea, 1 and the farthest 

 lands on our globe, was ended. Morton felt himself disappointed 

 in not being able to come past that terrible cape, which hid his 

 prospect towards the east. I, for my part, was not disappointed on 

 reading that such a hindrance arose before him. I know it from 

 sad experience, as I, during three consecutive winters, have followed 

 the winding coasts of North Greenland in dog sledges, in order to 

 lay them down on my chart. I know these bewitched points which 

 continue to shoot forth when one thinks one is at the end of an 

 island, these endless promontories which one must get past before 

 one can reach the right promontory, and can turn round ; these hills 

 — these eternal tops — that shoot up when one ascends the cliffs, 

 before one reaches the right top, whence one can have the wished- 

 for prospect. I have passed half a day thus only to get the wished-for 

 general view over one single fjord-arm, and that even sometimes in 

 vain. What must it then not be, when one on an afternoon, and on 

 foot, seeks to reach the unknown end, to use Kane's own words, of 

 a " whole little Continent ? " 



We will now return to Kane's representation, and, on account of 

 its considerable extent, confine ourselves to inquire into the most 

 important conclusions, through which he comes to such great results 

 from the facts communicated above. 



Dr. Kane remarks in several places, that although it blew a strong 

 and almost stormy north wind during those days when Morton tra- 

 velled along the open water, there came only some few half-dissolved 

 pieces of ice drifting from the north, and at last none at all. This 

 shows, if one will draw any conclusion whatever from it, that the 

 navigable water, a good way from the mouth of the narrow pass, in 

 which the stream was so extremely rapid, had been covered with 

 still good winter ice. For if it were really on the border of the open 

 sea one might expect to find much loose drift-ice between the 

 margin of the fast ice over which they had driven, and the quite 

 .open sea ; and there was a great probability that such drift-ice 

 must appear and press on during a continued north wind. A 

 sudden beginning of a perfectly ice-free sea is scarcely to be 

 imagined. 



1 With reference to the latitude of the northernmost point reached by Morton, 

 he states in his Journal, p. 378, vol. ii., "We arrived at our camp where we had 

 left the sledge at 5 p.m., having been absent 36 hours, during which time we had 

 travelled twenty miles due north of it. June 26th. — Before starting I took a 

 meridian altitude of the sun." This observation is worked at page 388 in the 

 same volume, where the result appears as 80° 20' 2" 



Add 20 miles according to the above remark . . . . 20 



Latitude of the farthest point reached by Morton .. 80 40 2 



