2-356-054 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Elisha Kent Kane and his companions in Greenland, c1855 (c1880). Kane served as senior medical officer on the Grinnell Arctic Expedition of 1850-1851, which searched unsuccessfully for the missing British expedition of Sir John Franklin. In 1853 he organised his own expedition. Although again he failed to find Franklin, Kane explored and mapped part of Greenland, reaching further north than any other explorer done previously. In May 1855 his party was forced to abandon their ship, but successfully completed an 83 day trek to safety, losing only one member in the process. A print from Cassell's History of the United States, by Edmund Ollier, Volume III, Cassell Petter and Galpin, London, c1880.