The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-10-29
ARCTIC DISCOVERY.
A Claim that Americans Have Found
Land Higher than the Austrinns.

n claim thaU Americans Have Found
| Land Higher than the Austrians.
DIR. Hayes, in letter to the New
York Tribune respecting the Arctic dis
covery, says
The route to the pole by way of
| Smiths sound was first tried by DIR.
Kane and its practicability was first
| demonstrated by myself. Crossing
| Smiths sound with dog-sledges over
/ the ice frorQ DIR. Kane's winter-quarters,
discovered and reached GrinneIl Land,
| finding everything near it a smooth belt
of ice of the last winters freezing,
proving that while the center and east
ern sides of the sound were choked
with heavy and almost impossible hum
mocks, the west coast was entirely free
when the previous winter had set in.
This fact reported to DR.. Kane, and
upon my return to the United States
from that expedition, I published the
opinion that by hugging the west
coast a free passage could be had
through the sounds. Upon thestrength
of this argument my expedition of 1860
was organized bat not having (by rea-
son of lack of means) the steam power
which I desired, I was unable to reach
the west coast in the teeth of heavy
gales and drifting ice-fields, and was
forced into winter quarters, with my
little schooner badly crippled, on the
east side, in latitude 7S deg. II min.
In this respect my fortune was exactly
that of DR.. Kane, neither of us having
steam power. From winter quarters
travelled north with dog sledges over
the ice nearly three hundred miles,
measured as the crow flies, until I was
arrested by open water a little below
latitude 80 deg, my highest determined
position by solar latitude bei1g 81 deg.
81 min, on Grinnen Land. Beyond
this made good pull northward, but
having no solar altitude could not fix
my position beyond 81 deg, 81 min.
with accuracy. Capt. Haf traversed
Smith sound in the steamer Polaris
without difficulty, as I had long before
predicted could be done, and passing
over the route which 1 had passed over
with dog-sledges, he reached the open
water which I sighted. His highest
latitude was 80 degrees Is minutes
some twenty-f five or thirty miles nearer
tho pole than mine. But he was there
in August, a most open month, while l
was there in May, before thawing had
fairly set in. He was in ship, and I
III a dog-sledge but the open sea was
to both our eyes the same, and, as l be- (
lieve, in both cases illimitable, except
as here and there Obstructed by loose,
drifting fields of ice. The highway to
the pole was, I believe, open to
Captain Hall, and, had he lived,
1 believe he would have reach
ed it. 1 believe the same thing
could have been done by my old com
mander, DR.. Kane, in August, 1858, |
and by myself in 1860, had either of us |
been blessed with steam and believe, |
as have repeatedly asserted publicly, |
that the sound can be navigated with |
steam power any year, and in proof of |
this we may cite the fact that Capt. |
Hall experienced no difficulty whatever |
in the Polaris, which, as if it were but |
a pleasure voyage, steamed in six days |
from Upernavik to the highest point |
ever reached by any vessel and even !
the land he sighted beyond must, 1 |
think, have been something further |
north than latitude SO degrees which |
seems to have been the northeFnmost |
point-Cape Vienna -sesn by the gal |
liant officers of the Tegetthoh. For in |
1861 I traced the outline of the land, |
which named Cape Union, on the west |
side Gmperfectly traced, it is true, |
owing to the great difficulties of the |
situation), to latitude 80 degrees 45 |
minutes, and Can't. Hall must have seen !
land beyond this.
So I must think the American Grin |
nell Land must have been sighted little |
further north than the Francis Joseph
Land of Messrs. Payer & Weyprecht. |
I take some pride in thinking this, as 1t
is not only an American discovery, but |
my own, and has been traversed by no !
other white man, except my one compan-
ion In 1854, and my three companions
in 1861. I think may still, therefore,
claim the discovery of the most north |
ern known body of land on the globe,
for on the Greenland side Capt. Hall
did not extend the surveys of DIR. Kane
(Which terminated about latitude eighty
degrees fifty minutes) so far north as he
sighted beyond my own surveys on the
opposite side. have said this much |
in order that might show some grounds 1
for asserting my belief with you that
Smiths sound is " the most, or only,
available route to the pole"