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HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



A Danish vessel — the Mariane — was to return to Denmark 

 on the 4th of September, and at that date Kane and his party 

 embarked on board of her, the captain engaging to drop them 

 at the Shetland Islands. On the 11th they arrived at God- 

 havn, and there, at the very moment of their final departure, 

 Captain Hartstene's relief-squadron was sighted in the offing. 

 With the rescue of the adventurers closes our record of Arctic 

 peril and discovery. 



Dr. Kane fell a victim to his zeal in the arduous paths of 

 science. He died, on the 16th of February, 1857, at Havana, 

 where he was seeking to recuperate his debilitated system be- 

 neath a tropical sun. , His loss was sincerely lamented by the 

 whole country. No commander was ever better fitted by nature 

 for the task confided to him ; and no historian ever chronicled 

 the results of his own labors in language more enthralling or in 

 a style more commanding and picturesque. 



The general interest occasioned by the various polar expe- 

 ditions can hardly be better shown than by a reference to the 

 pleasure excursions made in their own yachts, by various ama- 

 teur explorers in search of the excitement necessarily incident 

 to expeditions of this kind. Lord Dufferin, who was recently 

 the Governor-General of Canada, in his account of a visit of this 

 kind made by himself to Iceland, gives a vivid account of the 

 lives past by the hardy settlers of this extreme northerly outpost 

 of civilization. 



Reykjavik, the present capital of Iceland, is a comparatively 

 modern settlement, which has obtained its modern importance 

 at the expense of both Thingvalla and Skalholt, formerly the 

 seat of the parliament and the capital. In 1797 the legislature 

 was transferred here, and it was made the seat of the ecclesi- 

 astical organization of the island. It contains about 1400 

 inhabitants, is the chief seat of the large fish trade of Iceland, 

 and has an annual fair in July, to which traders resort from a 

 circle of fifty leagues. The houses in which the majority of the 



