pack opened somewhat, so that the vessel was enabled to change her position and secure safe anchorage. This place, later named Thank God Harbor, in 81° 37´ N., 61° 44´ W., was sheltered by a bold cape to the north, while the Polaris was protected from the polar pack by an immense ice-floe, called Providence Berg. This enormous floe-berg, grounded in a hundred fathoms of water, was by direct measurement four hundred and fifty feet long, three hundred feet broad, and towered sixty feet above the level of the sea. Preparations were at once made to put the crew in winter-quarters, and on shore an observatory was built for scientific purposes. To the surprise and delight of the party, seals proved to be quite abundant, and a small herd of musk-oxen was found, the first of these animals ever seen on the west coast of Greenland. Leaving his chief of the scientific staff and his sailing-master to their respective duties, Hall decided on a preliminary sledge journey in order to determine the best route for his contemplated journey of the next spring toward the pole. A heavy fall of snow insured good sledging and enabled him to leave Thank God Harbor on October 10th, he being accompanied by the first mate, Chester, the Esquimaux, Joe and Hans Hendrick, with two dog-sledges and fourteen dogs. In a journey of six days he attained Cape Brevoort, in 82° N., on the north side of Newman Bay, a considerable distance to the southward, however, of the point reached by the Polaris in the Arctic Ocean. In a despatch written at this point, Hall says, "From Cape Brevoort we can see land extending on the west side of the strait to the north, a distance of about seventy miles, thus making land, as far as we can discover, about 83° 5´ N." To illustrate the accuracy of Hall's judgment and his freedom from making extravagant claims, it may be stated that the detailed surveys of the British Arctic expedition of 1876 show the most northerly point on the east coast of Grinnell Land, Cape Joseph Henry, which possibly could be seen by Hall, was in 82° 55´, or within ten miles of the position assigned it from a distance of seventy miles. [Illustration: A Woman of the Arctic Highlanders. Sketched from life.] Hall returned to the Polaris on October 24th, speaking most encouragingly of his prospects and planning another sledge journey for the autumn. Within an hour, however, he was taken violently ill, and upon examination, Dr. Bessels announced that he had been stricken with apoplexy, that his left side was paralyzed, and that his sickness might prove fatal. After an illness, with delirium, for several days, he improved materially, and was even able, through his clerk, to arrange the records of his late sledge journey, but a recurrence of the attack caused his death, on November 8, 1871.