ALBERT LAND. 
203 
the inscription runs thus : "Albert Land: seen (on the 
birth-day of H. R. H. Prince Albert) from H. M. S. 
Assistance, 26th August, 1850. — Captain Ommanney's 
Journal : independently seen and explored by Cap- 
tain Penny and his officers." The other, from the hy- 
drographer of the Admiralty, goes further : it not only 
inscribes Albert Land on the region we had named 
after Mr. Grinnell, but explains the error of our claim, 
by announcing, in a note, that Baillie Hamilton Isl- 
and is the " Grinnell Land of the American squad- 
ron." 
The controversy is perhaps of little moment. The 
time has gone by when the mere sighting of a distant 
coast conferred on a navigator or his monarch either 
ownership of the soil or a right to govern its people : 
even the planting a flag-staff, with armorial emblazon- 
ments at the top and a record-bottle below it, does not 
insure nowadays a conceded title. Yet the comity of 
explorers has adopted the rule of the more scientific 
observers of nature, and holds it for law every where 
that he who first sees and first announces shall also 
give the name. I should be sorry to withdraw from 
the extreme charts of northern discovery any memo- 
rial, even an indirect one, of that Lady Sovereign, 
whose noble-spirited subjects we met in Lancaster 
Sound. It was only by accident that we preceded 
them, under the guidance of causes that can assert for 
us little honor, since they were beyond our control, 
and we should have been glad to escape them. But 
we did precede them ; and the most northern land on 
the meridian of 94° west must retain, therefore, the 
honored name which it received from the American 
commander. 
A very brief review of the facts will establish this 
