Hall sailed from New York June 29th, the party consisting of Captain Buddington, sailing-master; Dr. Emil Bessel, chief of the scientific staff; R. W. D. Bryan, astronomer; Sergeant Frederick Meyer, Signal Corps, meteorologist; seven petty officers, and a crew of fourteen, together with his faithful servants, Joe and Hannah. The Polaris was provisioned and equipped for an absence of two and a half years, and her voyage was destined to be over the route made famous by the expeditions of Kane and Hayes, through Davis Strait and northward along the west coast of Greenland, although Hall was at first uncertain whether he would not enter Jones's Sound, instead of Smith's Strait. The usual visits to the Greenland ports were made, with resulting stores of furs, dogs, sledges, and other paraphernalia for exploration in the far North. To this point the expedition was convoyed by the man-of-war Congress, which bade the Polaris Godspeed as she left Godhaven on her lonely journey. Hans Hendrick, the Esquimau dog traveller, whose services with Kane and Hayes commended him to Hall, accompanied the expedition with his wife and children. It was a strange meeting between Morton, the second mate, and Hans, the Esquimau, who, twenty years before, as subordinates of Kane, had made together the memorable sledge journey from Rensselaer Harbor, along the Humboldt Glacier, to Cape Constitution. [Illustration: An Arctic Fiord.] The Polaris was favored by an unusually open sea; Melville Bay was crossed in forty-eight hours and the "North Water" beyond was so free of ice that the Polaris kept her way unchecked until she reached Hakluyt Island; even here the ice-pack was so open that the Polaris easily forced her way. Littleton Island was passed on the evening of August 27, 1870, and later, crossing the parallel of Rensselaer Harbor, the Polaris attained a higher latitude than any former vessel on this route. Kane Sea and Kennedy Channel proved equally free of ice, so that the Polaris, steaming uninterruptedly northward, entered the Arctic Ocean, hitherto inaccessible, where she was finally stopped by an impenetrable pack, in 82° 26´ N. This point was more than two hundred miles directly north of the farthest reached by Kane's vessel, the Advance. From this vantage-ground it was seen that the eastern coast-line of Grinnell Land extended somewhat farther to the north before turning to the west, and that, on the other hand, the coast of Northern Greenland trended very nearly eastward. Strenuous, though unavailing, efforts were made to push the Polaris further northward; failing this, attempts were then made to find a safe harbor to the eastward, but none was accessible. In the meantime the main ice-pack of the Arctic Ocean, setting southward to its normal position, carried the Polaris steadily to the south, through Robinson Channel, a distance of nearly fifty miles, and nearly caused her destruction by forcing her on the Greenland coast. Fortunately the