The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-11 00:00:00

IMBER.

LIEUT. KANES ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

MEETING OF THE AMERICAN GEOGRA-
PHICAL AND STATISTICAL SOCIETY. 2
( Front the New York Herald of Dec. 15.)
Last evening, this society held its monthly meetings
in the chapel of the University, Washington-square, the
Hon. George Bancroft presiding.
A very able and interesting paper was read by Pro-
fessor E. K. Kane, entitled "Access to an open Polar
Sea by a North American Meridian."
After the PRESIDENT had made a few remarks,
Mr. KANE came forward, and introduced the subject of
his discourse by observing, that the North Pole was re-
garded even by the geographers with that mysterious awe
which enveloped the inaccessible and unknown. He then
proceeded to explain the position of the North Pole, as
shut out from us by a zone of ice, which formed a perma-
nent barrier ; he traced the efforts of early and recent
navigators to make a passage through illustrating the
entire from accurate maps and charts : he called attention
to a remarkable feature in the ice-coast line—a marked
indentation ashigh as lat. 80 deg., and 70 deg. east long.
known as the " Old Ticking Bight." After following the
immense investing body throughout the entire circuit,
the doctor proceeded to show the strong presumption in
favour of the existence of a North Polar Sea, or Polynya
(a Russian term implying an open space. He then said
with the sources of supply, it was evident that this sur-
charged basin must have an outlet, and pointed out
three—Behrings's Straits, the estuaries of Hudson and
Baffin's Bays, and the Greenland Sea. He showed the
southward flow of ice and water, which in the Spitsbergen
Straits flowed very strong and carried the vessels attempt-
ing to stem it back. All the facts went to prove that
the Polar Basin was not only the seat of an active
supply and discharge, but of an intestine circulation, in-
dependent of either ; while the inter-communication of
whales between the Atlantic and Pacific, shown by
Maury, proved directly that the two oceans were united.
The doctor progeeded to adduce experiments of the
temperature of water, and other facts, in support of the
theory of a Polar open sea, and said—" But if any point
between 75 deg. and 80 deg.—a range sufficiently wide
to include all the theories—be regarded as the seat of
the greatest intensity of cold, we may perhaps infer the
state of the Polar Seas from the known temperatures
of other regions equally distant with it from this
supposed centre ; though, as the lines of latitude do
not correspond with those of temperature, this must
be done with caution. I have been engaged for
some time in tracing out this class of deductions,
and I find that they point to some interesting con-
clusions as to the fluidity of the region about the pole
and its attendant mildness of the weather. Thus, for
instance, at Cherie Island, surrounded by moving waters,
but situated in as high a latitude as Melville Island, the
seat of the greatest observed mean annual cold, the tem-
perature was found so mild throughout the entire Arctic
winter that rain fell there on Christmas-day. 2. Barentz,
a most honest and reliable authority, speaks of the in-
creasing warmth as he left the land to the north of 77
deg. The whalers north of the Spitzbergen confirm the
saying of the early Dutch, that the Fisherman's Bight is
as pleasant as the sea of Amsterdam. 3. Egedesminde
and Rittenback—two little Danish and Esquimaux set-
tlements, on the west coast of Greenland, in lat. 70 deg.,
with a climate influenced by adjacent land masses, but,
nevertheless, not completely icebound—have a mean
annual temperature of—and are in the isothermal
curve (summer curve) of-50, givirlg us a vegetation of
coarse grasses and a few crucifers. 4. In West Lapland,
as high as 70 deg., barley has been, and I believe is still
grown,
own though here is its highest northern limit. If 80
deg. be our centre of minimum cold, the Pole at 90 deg.
is at the same distance from it as this West Lapland
limit of the growth of barley. So, with a little more sun,
a few weeks longer, they might grow grain against the
North Pole. But there are other arguments based
upon known facts ; facts popularly recognised and di-
rect in their instructive bearings upon an open sea.
The migration of animal life ! At the utmost limits
of northern travel attained by man, hordes of animals
of various kinds have been observed travelling still fur-
ther. The Arctic zone, though not rich in species, is
teeming with individual life. Among birds, the swim-
mers, drawing their subsistence from open water, are
predominant, the great families of ducks (anatince), auks
(alcence), and procellarine birds (procellarince), throng
the seas and passages of the far north, and even incubate
in regions of unknown northerness. The eider duck has
been traced to breeding-grounds as high as 78 deg. in
Baffin's Bay ; and in conjunction with the Brent goose,
seen by us in Wellington Channel, the loon and little
auk pass in great flights to the northern waters beyond.
The mammals of the sea—the huge cetacea, in the three
great families, belenedw, delphinedm, phocid, repre-
sented by the whales, the narwhal, and beluga—the seal,
and that strange marine pachyderm, the tusky walrus—all
pass in shoals towards the northern waters. I have seen
the white whale (delphinepterus beluga) passing up Wel-
lington Channel to the north for nearly four successive
days, and that that too while all around us was a sea of
broken ice. So with the quadrupeds of this region. • The
equatorial range of the Polar bear (U. maritimus) is mis-
ceived by our zoologists. It is further to the north than
we have yet reached, and this powerful beast informs
us of the character of the accompanying life upon which
he preys. The ruminating animals, whose food must be
a vegetation, obey the same impulse or instinct of far
northern travel. The reindeer (cerous Tarandus), al-
though proved by my friend, Lieutenant M'Clintock, to
winter sometimes in the Parry group, outside of the
zone of woods, comes down from the north in herds as
startling as those described by the Siberian travellers,
moving forest of antlers. The whalers of North
Baffin's Bay, as high as 75 degrees, shoot them in num-
bers, and the Esquimaux of Whale Sound, 77 degrees,
are clothed there with furs." The lecturer then men-
tioned that the Polar drift ice came first from the north.
The breaking up, the thaw of the ice plain, did not
commence in our so-called warmer south, but in
regions to the north of those yet attained. In addition
to this, we had the observations of actual travel.
To penetrate the icy annulus and make the north-west
passage had been favourite dreams since tie
early days of ocean navigation ; yet up to this moment
complete failure had attended every attempt. But the
question of access to the Arctic Pole, the penetration to
this open sea, is now brought again before us, not as in
the days of Hudson, and Scoresby, and Parry, a curious
problem for scientific inquiry, but as an object claiming
philanthropic effort, and appealing thus to the sym-
pathies of the whole civilised world—the rescue of Sir
John Franklin and his followers. The recent dis-
coveries by the united squadrons of De Haven and
Penny, of Franklin's first winter quarters at the
mouth of Wellington Channel, aided by the com-
plete proofs since obtained that he did not proceed to the
east or west, render it beyond conjecture certain that he
passed up Wellington Channel to the north. Here we
have lost him ; and, save the lonely records upon the
tombstones of his dead, for seven years he has been lost to
the world. To assign his exact position is impossible. We
only know that he has travelled up this land-locked chan-
nel, seeking thwobjects of his enterprise to the north
and west. That he or some of his party are yet in exist-
ence, this is not the place to argue. Let the question rest
upon the opinions of those who, having visited this region
are at least better qualified to judge of its resources
than those who have formed their opinions by the fire-
side." After speaking ofthe unsuccessful journeys of Penny
Goodsir, Manson, and Sutherland, Dr. Kane said, "It
is to announce another plan of search I am now before
you, and as the access to the open sea forms the character-
istic feature, I have given you the preceding physical
characteristic of the region in order to enable you to
weigh properly its merits and demerits. It is in recogni-
tion of the important office which American geogra-
phers can perform towards promoting its utility and
success that I have made the society the first recipient
of the details and outlines of my plan. H. Grinnell,
the first president, and now a vice president of this
society, has done me the honour of placing at my dis-
position his vessel, the Advance, and the Secretary of
the Navy has assigned me to 'special duty' for the con-
duct of the expedition. My plan of search is based upon
the probable extension of the land masses of Greenland
to the far north—a view yet to be verified by travel, but
sustained by the analogies of physical geography. Green-
land, though looked upon by Gieseke as a congeries of
islands, cemented by interior glaciers, is in fact a penin-
sula, and follows the general laws which have been re-
oognised since the days of Forster as belonging to pe-
ninsulas with a southern tend. Its abrupt truncated
termination at Staaten-Hook is as marked as that
which is found at the Capes of Good Hope and
Horn of the two great continents—the Comorin of
Peninsular India, cape, south-east of Australia, or the
Gibraltar of Southern Spain. Analogies of general con-
tour, which also liken it to southern peninsulas, are
even more striking. The island group, for instance,
seen to the east of these southern points, answering to
the Falkland Islands, Madagascar, Ceylon, New Zea-
land, the Bahamas of Florida, and the Balearrics of the
coast of Spain, are represented by Iceland, off the coast of
Greenland. It has been observed that all great penin-
sulas, too, have an excavation or bend inwards on their
western side—a ' concave inflection' towards the interior Thus, South America, between Lima and Vald *
Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea ; India, in Camba avia
Australia, in the Bay of Nuges, are followed inYedreaenn-
land by the great excavation of Disco. Analogies of
the same sort offer, when we consider those more im-
portant features of relief so pojaularl
foundly treated by Professor Guyse. BLievyßelieving,tshoenp,r_
in
such an extension of Greenland, and feeling that the search
for Sir J. Franklin is best promoted by a course which
will lead directly to the open se feeling, too, that
the approximation of the meridians would make access
to the west as easy from Northern Greenland as from
Wellington Channel ; and access to the east far more
easy—feeling, too, that the Highest protruding headland
will be most likely to afford some trace of the lost party,
I am led to propose and attempt this line .of search.
Admitting such an extension of the land masses of
Greenland to the north, we have the following induce-
was
induce-
ments for exploration and research. Greenland was
re-
lined by a couple of internal ranges of mountains
sembling the Shawls of India. The culminationoun of these
strongly indicated their extension to a region far to the
north. The law of the gradual decline of meridianal
chains is universal, and give presuptive evidence of his
position.
"1. Terra Firma as the basis of our operations, obvi-
ating the accidents characteristic of ice travel.
"2. A due northern line, which, throwing aside the
influence of terrestrial radiation, would lead soonest to
the open sea, should such exist.
"3. The benefit of the fanlike abutment of land on
tliein its
north face of Greenland to check the ice in the course
of southernl or equatorial drift, thus obviating the
drawback of-Parry, in his attempts to reach the pole by
the Spitzbergen Sea.
"4. Animal life to sustain travelling parties.
"5. The co-operation of the Esquimaux, settlements
of Greenlanders having been found as high as Whale
Sounds, and probably extending still further along the
coast. The point I would endeavour to obtain would