204 
GRINNELL LAND; OR, 
beyond the chance of doubt. To those who have read 
Captain De Haven's Report, even though it were not 
confirmed in its leading particulars by the extracts 
from my journal, it must be plain that on the 2 2d of 
September, 1850, the officers of the American expedi- 
tion saw, or thought they saw, from a point in lati- 
tude 75° 24' 21", a large tract of land, extending in 
the distance from the northwest to the north-north- 
east, and that they gave to it the name of Grinnell 
Land. The accounts, which filled the American news- 
papers immediately after our return in September, 
1851, announced this fact widely, and the rude charts 
that were inserted in several of them indicated both 
the locality and the name. When this announcement 
was made, it was not known or supposed that any 
other party had ever sighted this high northern tract. 
There was no one from whom the Americans could 
have borrowed the knowledge of its existence, posi- 
tion, or outline. The fact, more recently ascertained, 
that others also have seen a similar tract in the same 
lirection, may confirm the truth of the American state- 
ment ; but it is difficult to imagine how it can be re- 
garded as impeaching it. It only proves that the land 
is there, as the American commander said it was ; 
while to those who doubt his assertion that he discov- 
ered it, it leaves the somewhat puzzling q^uestion, how 
it came to pass that he knew of its existence. 
But it is not alone the report of Captain De Haven, 
corroborated by memoranda made on the spot — it is 
not on these alone that the asserted discovery rests. 
All the officers of the American squadron were present 
at the time when it is said to have taken place ; they 
were all of them in New York when the accounts of 
it were in the newspapers ; they have all of them read 
