s and heroic efforts of his
sledge-mates, themselves partially disabled, Kane was carried on
board the Advance fluctuating between life and death. Hardly
conscious, his mind clouded, and his swollen features barely
recognizable, his general condition was such that the surgeon
regarded his ultimate recovery as nearly hopeless.

While Kane's recuperative powers were simply marvellous, yet he did
not recover sufficiently to make another journey that spring. In
this extremity he turned to his surgeon, Israel I. Hayes, who
volunteered to explore the unknown shores of Grinnell Land, which
lay in sight to the west of Smith Sound. With the seaman Godfrey as
a companion and a dog-team as the means of transportation, Hayes
struggled through the almost impassable floes and bergs of the main
strait and finally attained Cape Hayes, on the western coast, in
about 79 deg. 45' N. latitude. The return journey to the Advance was
possible only by abandoning everything that in the slightest degree
impeded the progress of the exhausted men and famishing dogs.

This success caused Kane to make one more effort to reach the
hitherto inaccessible Washington Land, and for this purpose he
placed all his means at the disposal of one of his seamen, William
Morton. A supporting party accompanied Morton to Humboldt Glacier,
whence he proceeded with Eskimo Hans Hendrik and a dog-team on the
advance journey. Their track lay over the sea-ice, about five miles
from, and parallel with, the face of the glacier. Five days took
them to the new land to the north, and three days later, June 24,
1854, Morton reached alone an impassable headland, Cape
Constitution. From the highest attainable elevation Morton found his
view completely cut off to the northeast, but between the west and
north he could see the southeastern half of Kennedy's Channel as far
north as Mount Ross, 80 deg. 58' N. He says "Not a speck of ice was to
be seen as far as I could observe; the sea was open, the swell came
from the northward ... and the surf broke in on the rocks below in
regular breakers." Morton described accurately the general
landscape, but he was an incompetent astronomical observer, and his
estimates of distances were excessive. The farthest point was
charted nearly a hundred miles north of its true position, while
Cape Constitution was placed 31 miles too far north by Morton and 52
geographic miles by Kane, who "corrected" Morton's observations by a
series of erroneous