328 WORKMEN AND HEROES comforts and dangers, the mental depression of the sunless midwinter of eight weeks, and the even harder experiences of the Arctic spring-tide, when excessive cold and increasing lassitude made steady inroads on their impaired constitutions. Kane tells us they were continually harassed by uncertainties as to their ulti- mate fate. Yesterday the unbroken floe, stretching as far as the eye could reach, seemed so firm and stable as to insure months of quiet, uninterrupted life. To- day, the groaning, uneasy pack, yielding to an unseen power, split and cracked in all directions, throwing up huge masses of solid ice, that threatened to destroy instantly the ship, and occasionally opened in wide cracks through which rushed the open sea. Indeed, the conditions were so critical and the ice-movements so rapid, that the entire party, within the brief space of twenty-four hours, had four times made ready to abandon their vessels. In March the cold became intense, and for a week it averaged fifty-three de- grees below the freezing-point. Scurvy assailed all but five of the crew, and De Haven was so ill that all his duties devolved on Griffin, who heroically bore up under disease and the mental and moral responsibilities that the situation forced on him. In all his efforts Griffin had no more effective coadjutor than the fleet- surgeon, Kane. Whether acting as a medical officer, treating skilfully the dis- eased crew; as a hunter, supplementing their scanty stock of anti-scorbutic food with the fresh meat of the seal; or as a man, devising means of amusement and stimulating them to mental and physical exertions, Kane incessantly displayed such qualities of cheerfulness, activity, and ingenuity as tended to dispel the pall of despair that sometimes enveloped the whole expedition. When release from the ice permitted the voyage to be renewed, De Haven decided to refit in the Greenland ports and again return to Lancaster Sound; fortunately, as the squadron was not fitted for a second year's work, the ice in Melville Bay was such as to prevent immediate passage, and so they turned southward, reaching the United States on September 30, 185 1. Such desperate experiences as those involved in the mid-winter drift of the Advance, would have deterred most men for a time from a second voyage, but with Kane the stimulus to future work apparently increased with every league that he sailed southward The ship was hardly in port before he initiated a plan for another expedition in the spring of 1852. This failing he wrote Lady Frank- lin in May, offering to go with Captain Penny, or any good sailing-master, to give his services without pay, and pledging himself to go to work and raise funds. Finding it impossible to go with any British expedition, he turned his entire efforts to organizing another from America. His chivalric enthusiasm enlisted the sympathies and active support of Henry Grinnell and George Peabody, the first loaning the ship and the latter contributing $10,000 for general expenses. The United States again aided, not only putting Kane on sea-pay, but also attached ten men of the Navy, under government pay. Instruments, provisions, etc., were likewise supplied by the Secretary of the Navy, and aid in other direc- tions was afforded by the Smithsonian Institution, the Naval Observatory, and Other scientific associations. At this juncture the discoveries of Captain Ingle-
