The Far North: Exploration in the Arctic Regions

EXPLORATIONS IN
THE ARCTIC REGIONS.
ELISHA KENT KANE, M.D.,
COMMANDER, SECOND “GRINNELL” EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
EDINBURGH: WILLIAM P. NIMMO & CO. 1879.

EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY M’FARLANE AND ERSKINE, ST JAMES SQUARE.

In May 1845, Sir John Franklin sailed from England with the ships Erebus and Terror , on an expedition to attempt the discovery of a “North-West Passage,” or water communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to the North of the American Continent. No intelligence was received from him after the year following.
Dr Kane was born at Philadelphia in 1822, and was educated at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. In 1843 he accompanied the embassy to China, and for some time travelled in the interior of India. He also explored the Nile as far as the frontiers of Nubia, Returning to America, he afterwards visited the slave-coasts of Africa. He served in the U.S. army for a short period, and underwent many hardships during the Mexican campaign. In 1853 he was appointed to the command of the Arctic Expedition, a detailed narrative of which is contained in the present volume. Dr Kane died at Havannah in 1857, at the early age of thirty-five.