Passed Assistant Surgeon Elisha Kent Kane, 

 U.S. Navy (1820- 1857) 



Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School 

 in 1842, he became an Assistant Surgeon in the Navy the 

 following year, in 1850, after serving in China, Africa and 

 Mexico, he was assigned to the Coast Survey. However, in that 

 same year he sought and obtained the position of senior medical 

 officer of the unsuccessful Grinnell Arctic Expedition searching 

 for explorer Sir John Franklin, lost since 1845. Kane organized 

 and headed a second rescue expedition (Second Grinnell 

 Expedition) which sailed from New York in 1853. Though 

 scurvy-ridden and at times near death Kane pressed on. He 

 charted Smith Sound (now called Kane Basin) and penetrated 

 farther north than any other explorer had done up to that time. 

 At Cape Constitution he discovered ice-free Kennedy Channel, 

 later followed by Hayes, Hall, Greeley, and Peary in turn as they 

 drove toward the North Pole. Kane finally had to abandon his 

 icebound brig Advance in May of 1855 and undertake an 

 overland march of 83 days to reach safety. Kane returned to 

 New York in October 1855 and the following year he published 

 his two-volume ARCTIC EXPEDITIONS. After visiting England, 

 he sailed to Havana where he died on 16 February 1857, at the 

 age of 37. 



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