and thus he was enabled to live with comparative comfort in that high latitude. The deserters returned, in great distress, December 12th the thermometer being then 50° below zero. The entire party abandoned the ship May 20, 1855, and set out on their long journey homeward. They reached New York October 11th.
Dr. Hayes was with Kane in his second voyage, and in 1860 commanded an expedition himself, intending to reach the pole. He took up his winter-quarters at Port Foulke, in Smith's Sound, and penetrated as far north as 82° 45' on sledges. Dr. Hayes again visited Greenland in the following year, but restricted his labors to the survey of the southern coasts of the peninsula.
The last great polar expedition, which has just closed so eventfully, was in command of Captain Charles Francis Hall, who was born in Cincinnati in 1825. He was apprenticed in early life to a blacksmith, and worked for a time at his trade. He was a man of vigorous and robust development, of courteous and agreeable manners, and, although without a regular scientific education, he had an acute and practical mind. Without having studied the science of navigation, he took to it with enthusiasm, and by tact and experience became a competent commander. In his first voyage (1860) he spent two years and three months in the arctic regions. He went out again in 1864, and stayed five years, and then fully ascertained the time and places where the Franklin company had perished. His last expedition was fitted out by the United States Government, and he sailed from New York June 29, 1871, in the ship Polaris, his object being to find the north-pole. She took supplies from the United States ship Congress at Disco, in Greenland, and in August Captain Hall bade adieu to civilization at Tussisack, and pushed on toward the pole, while for nearly two years nothing was heard from him. A portion of the crew have now returned, from whom we learn that the ship reached latitude 82° 16', but put back and took up winter-quarters in latitude 81° 38', and there she was frozen up. On October 10th Captain Hall started on an expedition north, with sledges drawn by Esquimaux dogs, and accompanied by the mate and two Esquimaux. The party was absent two weeks, and returned to the ship on October 24th. Captain Hall was immediately taken sick, and, after fifteen days' illness, he died November 8, 1871. The following year, on August 12th, the Polaris left winter-quarters, got on her beam ends on the 15th of the same month, and was driven south to latitude 77° 35', when, owing to the heavy pressure of the ice, the vessel was thrown up, and while landing stores broke from her moorings October 15th, with a part of the crew, and drifted away. The party remaining on the ice consisted of 19 persons, five of whom were women and children. They had two boats, and a stock of provisions sufficient for a month, which, by short rations, they determined to make last for five months. One of the boats was used for fuel, and there were no materials for fire. Snow-huts were erected on the ice--
