A terrestrial nucleus, therefore, is girdled by the arctic sea. April and May of 1853, were a grand date in the history of the arctic pole. In April that passage was found which had been so perseveringly and vainly sought for during three centuries. The discovery resulted from a bold stroke of desperation. Captain Maclure having made his way in by Behring's strait was, for two years, shut in by the ice. Finding it impossible to return, he determined, at all hazards, to push forward. He did so and in only forty miles further found himself along side of English ships in the Eastern ocean. His boldness saved him and the great problem was at length solved. At that very time, May, 1858, New York sent out an expedition for the extreme North. A young naval surgeon, Elisha Kent Kane, only about thirty years old, but who had already sailed far and wide, announced an idea which greatly excited the American mind. Just as Wilkes had proposed to find a world, Kane proposed to find a sea, an open sea, under the pole. The English, in their routine, had searched from East to West; Kane proposed to sail due North and take possession, for his country, of that, as yet, undiscovered open polar sea. The bold proposal was enthusiastically hailed. Grinnell of New York, a great ship owner, princely alike in fortune and in heart, generously gave two ships; learned societies, and not a few of the general public, assisted with pecuniary contributions, with a perfectly religious zeal made up and contributed warm clothing. The crews, carefully selected from volunteers, were sworn to three things; to be obedient to orders, to abstain from spirituous liquors, and from profane language. A first expedition failed, but its failure daunted neither Mr. Grinnell nor the American public; and a second was fitted out, with the aid of certain English societies, who had chiefly in view the propagation of the gospel or a final search after Franklin.