762 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



of Kane Sea must hereafter be given. The Sound then narrowed, but with a deep 

 indentation setting into the Greenland shore. Steaming northward through a channel 

 apparently twenty-five or thirty miles wide, with high land on either side, in just a 

 week they reached their highest northern point, which by Hall's reckoning was in 

 latitude 82° 29' but which by Meyer's subsequent and probably more accurate calcu- 

 lations was in latitude 82° 16', a difference of about fifteen miles. Here, on the 30th 

 of August, the channel to which Hall gave the name of Robeson Straits, in honor of 

 the Secretary of the Navy, was impassably blocked by heavy masses of floating ice. 

 Hall took a boat and vainly sought to find a passage through the ice. To take a 

 step backward was far from his purpose. He found a small bay where he hoped to 

 make his winter quarters. A consultation was held, and, as it would seem, mainly , 

 through the influence of Buddington, it was decided not to lie up here. To this bay 

 Hall gave the name of Refuse Harbor. The ice now took the matter into its own 

 hands, and drifting slowly bore the Polaris southward for four days. On the 3d of 

 September the pack opened, and the Polaris headed eastward into a small cove setting 

 into the Greenland shore. The mouth of the cove was sheltered by a huge iceberg, 

 and here it was decided to winter. This cove, in latitude Sl^ 38', was named Polaris 

 Bay, and the sheltering ice island was called Providenceberg. Here at midnight, on 

 the 3d of September, Hall landed in a boat and raised the Stars and Stripes in the 

 name of God and the President of the United States. Polaris Bay is, if all calcu- 

 lations are correct, just three minutes of a degree, or about three miles further north 

 than the farthest point reached by Hayes, by land on the opposite side of the strait, 

 and about two hundred miles north of Kane's famous winter quarters. 



The Polaris was moored fast to the iceberg, an observatory was established, and 

 scientific work set about. Hall forthwith began to plan a sledge journey to the north. 

 Taking with him only Chester the mate, and Ebierbing and Hans, with two sledges 

 and fourteen dogs, he set out on the 10th of October. A fortnight, that is a week 

 for advancing and the same for returning, was the period fixed for this expedition. 

 On the evening of the 10th day he wrote his last dispatch, probably the last words 

 he ever wrote, for the Secretary of the Navy. By a strange chance the draft of this 

 dispatch has been preserved. Here follow the essential parts of it : 



Sixth Snowhouse Encampmenty latitude 82° 3', longitude 61° 20', October 20, 

 1871. Myself and party left the ship in winter quarters. Thank God Harbor, to 

 discover, if possible, a feasible route inland for my sledge journey, next spring, to 

 reach the North Pole, purposing to adopt such a route if found better than a route 

 over the old floes and hummocks of the strait. We arrived here on the afternoon of 

 October 17, having discovered a lake and river on our way. Along the latter our 

 route, a most serpentine one, which led us to this bay from the top of an iceberg near 

 the mouth of the river, we could see that this bay extended to the eastward and south- 

 ward about fifteen miles. On arriving here we found the mouth of the bay open, the 

 water having numerous seals in it, bobbing up their heads. This open water making 

 close to both headlands, and the ice of Robeson Strait being on the move, debarred all 

 chance of extending our journey up the strait. The mountainous land (none other 

 being about here) will not admit of our journeying further north ; and we commence 

 our return to-morrow morning. To-day we are storm-bound at this our sixth 

 encampment. We can see the land extending on the west side of the strait 



