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.

Numerous expeditions were fitted out and despatched in search of Franklin and his brave crew, both from this country and from America. In 1854, Dr Rae returned with information that the Esquimaux had reported having seen the bodies of “forty white men,” near Great Fish River, in the spring of 1850. This intelligence was not considered trustworthy, and Lady Franklin fitted out a private expedition, under the command of Captain M’Clintock, who sailed from Aberdeen in the steam-yacht Fox, July 1857. He returned in 1859 with indisputable proofs of the death of Franklin, and the fate of the expedition under his command,—full details of which he afterwards published.[A]

The present volume is an epitome of “Arctic Explorations,”[B] an official account of the Second “Grinnell” Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin,—the First Grinnell Expedition having been dispatched in 1850 under Lieutenant De Haven, with Dr Kane as surgeon. These expeditions were fitted out at New York, at the expense of a wealthy and generous merchant of that city, named Grinnell, and Mr Peabody, the eminent American resident in London, whose munificence and liberality are now so well known in this country. In the Second Expedition, the brig Advance was placed under the command of Dr Elisha Kent Kane, assistant-surgeon, U.S.N., a gentleman well qualified, from previous experience, to undertake such an important duty.

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.

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