many relics of his expedition, and from the Esquimaux gathered indisputable evidence of his fate.  By sea the United States was represented in the search for Franklin, by the ships “Advance” and “Rescue.”  They accomplished little of importance, but on the latter vessel was a young navy surgeon, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who was destined to make notable contributions to Arctic knowledge, both as explorer and writer.

One who studies the enormous volume of literature in which the Arctic story is told, scarcely can fail to be impressed by the pertinacity with which men, after one experience in the polar regions, return again and again to the quest for adventure and honors in the ice-bound zone.  The subaltern on the expedition of to-day, has no sooner returned than he sets about organizing a new expedition, of which he may be commander.  The commander goes into the ice time and again until, perhaps, the time comes when he does not come out.  The leader of a rescue party becomes the leader of an exploring expedition, which in its turn, usually comes to need rescue.

So we find Dr. Kane, who was surgeon of an expedition for the rescue of Franklin, commanding four years later the brig “Advance,” and voyaging northward through Baffin’s Bay.  Narrowly, indeed, he escaped the fate of the man in the search for whom he had gained his first Arctic experience.  His ship, beset by ice, and sorely wounded, remained fixed and immovable for two years.  At first the beleaguered men made sledge journeys in every direction for exploratory purposes, but the second year they sought rather by determined, though futile dashes across the rugged surface of the frozen sea, to find some place of refuge, some hope of emancipation from the thraldom of the ice.  The second winter all of the brig except the hull, which served for shelter, was burned for fuel; two men had died, and many were sick of scurvy, the sledge dogs were all dead, and the end of the provisions was in sight.  In May, 1855, a retreat in open boats, covering eighty-five days and over fifty miles of open sea, brought the survivors to safety.

When men have looked into the jaws of death, it might be thought they would strenuously avoid such another view.  But there is an Arctic fever as well as an Arctic chill, and, once in the blood, it drags its victim irresistibly to the frozen North, until perhaps he lays his bones among the icebergs, cured of all fevers forever.  And so, a year or two after the narrow escape of Dr. Kane, the surgeon of his expedition, Dr. Isaac I. Hayes, was hard at work fitting out an expedition of which he was to be commander, to return to Baffin’s Bay and Smith sound, and if possible, fight its way into that open sea, which Dr. Hayes long contended surrounded the North Pole.  No man in the Kane expedition had encountered greater perils, or withstood more cruel suffering than Dr. Hayes.  A boat trip which he made in search of succor, has passed into Arctic history as one of the most desperate expedients ever adopted by starving men.  But at the first opportunity he returned again to the scenes of his peril and his pain.  His expedition, though conducted with spirit and determination, was not of great scientific value, as he was greatly handicapped in his observations by the death of his astronomer, who slipped through thin ice into the sea, and froze to death in his water-soaked garments.