PLANTING THE FLAG.
It now only remained for us to plant our flag in token of our discovery, and to deposit a record in proof of our presence. The flags[10] were tied to the whip-lash, and suspended between two tall rocks, and while we were building a cairn, they were allowed to flutter in the breeze; then, tearing a leaf from my note-book, I wrote on it as follows:—
"This point, the most northern land that has ever been reached, was visited by the undersigned, May 18th, 19th, 1861, accompanied by George F. Knorr, traveling with a dog-sledge. We arrived here after a toilsome march of forty-six days from my winter harbor, near Cape Alexander, at the mouth of Smith Sound. My observations place us in latitude 81° 35′, longitude 70° 30′, W. Our further progress was stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Kennedy Channel appears to expand into the Polar Basin; and, satisfied that it is navigable at least during the months of July, August, and September, I go hence to my winter harbor, to make another trial to get through Smith Sound with my vessel, after the ice breaks up this summer.
I. I. Hayes.
"May 19th, 1861."
[10] These were a small United States flag (boat's ensign), which had been carried in the South Sea Expedition of Captain Wilkes, U. S. N., and afterwards in the Arctic Expeditions of Lieut. Comg. DeHaven and Dr. Kane; a little United States flag which had been committed to Mr. Sonntag by the ladies of the Albany Academy; two diminutive Masonic flags intrusted to me,—one by the Kane Lodge of New York, the other by the Columbia Lodge of Boston; and our Expedition signal-flag, bearing the Expedition emblem, the Pole Star—a crimson star, on a white field—also a gift from fair hands. Being under the obligation of a sacred promise to unfurl all of these flags at the most northern point attained, it was my pleasing duty to carry them with me—a duty rendered none the less pleasing by the circumstance that, together, they did not weigh three pounds.
This record being carefully secured in a small glass vial, which I brought for the purpose, it was deposited beneath the cairn; and then our faces were turned homewards. But I quit the place with reluctance. It possessed a fascination for me, and it was with no ordinary sensations that I contemplated my situation, with one solitary companion, in that hitherto untrodden desert; while my nearness to the earth's axis, the consciousness of standing upon land far beyond the limits of previous observation, the reflections which crossed my mind respecting the vast ocean which lay spread out before me, the thought that these ice-girdled waters might lash the shores of distant islands where dwell human beings of an unknown race, were circumstances calculated to invest the very air with mystery, to deepen the curiosity, and to strengthen the resolution to persevere in my determination to sail upon this sea and to explore its furthest limits; and as I recalled the struggles which had been made to reach this sea,—through the ice and across the ice,—by generations of brave men, it seemed as if the spirits of these Old Worthies came to encourage me, as their experience had already guided me; and I felt that I had within my grasp "the great and notable thing" which had inspired the zeal of sturdy Frobrisher, and that I had achieved the hope of matchless Parry.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE OPEN POLAR SEA.—WIDTH OF THE POLAR BASIN.—BOUNDARIES OF THE POLAR BASIN.—POLAR CURRENTS.—POLAR ICE.—THE ICE-BELT.—ARCTIC NAVIGATION AND DISCOVERY.—THE RUSSIAN SLEDGE EXPLORATIONS.—WRANGEL'S OPEN SEA.—PARRY'S BOAT EXPEDITION.—DR. KANE'S DISCOVERIES.—EXPANSION OF SMITH SOUND.—GENERAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM MY OWN DISCOVERIES AND THOSE OF MY PREDECESSORS.