American explorer, after taking a medical degree at Pennsylvania, where he was born, entered the United States Navy as assistant-surgeon, and was attached to the first American Embassy to China. He next travelled extensively in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, and saw service in the Mexican War of 1848. He was appointed surgeon and naturalist to the first Grinnell Expedition for the recovery of Franklin, projected in 1850, and on his return, in 1852, published a personal narrative of “The United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin” (1854). The careful study of the ice formations is the chief scientific merit of the work. Dr. Kane took command of the second Arctic Expedition from New York, fitted out by Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Peabody for the recovery of Franklin, and was only rescued after a three years’ absence by a relief party sent out by the United States Government. “The Second Grinnell Expedition” (1856) describes as the result of this expedition the examination of the far northern coast-line, and the probable discovery of an Arctic sea surrounding the pole.

Personal

  Let us, then, citizens of Philadelphia, do honor to the memory of the dead—our illustrious dead—in the manner which best becomes him and us; with dignity, with moderation, with decorum, with no exaggerated ostentation, with no effort to make mere ceremonial transcend the limits of actual feeling. Let us show we feel this blow deeply. While other communities may exceed us in display, let Philadelphia—the city of Kane’s birth, and education, and manhood, show the deepest and most earnest feeling.

  He had always been subject to sea-sickness in a very acute and distressing form, manifesting itself in a constant retching without power to obtain relief, and giddiness, which a comparatively slight roughness of the sea—for instance, a four or five knot breeze—invariably brought to him, and which scarcely abated in severity through the longest voyage: it was therefore infinitely worse than the short, violent, and spasmodic form. The occurrence of this malady increased his general debility, but did not prevent his frequent presence and activity on deck…. Throughout the entire cruise he seldom fell asleep until late in the morning, and four or five hours was in general his maximum of rest. His sleep, too, was very light. It was scarcely ever necessary to more than utter his name to make him open his eyes; and if it was accidentally mentioned in the cabin, within hearing of his bunk, he would awake immediately.

  Dr. Kane was five feet six inches in height. In his best health he weighed about one hundred and thirty-five pounds. He had a fair complexion, with soft brown hair. His eyes were dark gray, with a wild-bird light in them when his intellect and feelings were in genial flow; when they were in the torrent-tide of enraptured action, the light beamed from them like the flashing of scimitars, and in impassioned movement they glared frightfully…. In company, when the talk ran glib and everybody would be heard, he was silent, but tense and elastic as a steel spring under pressure. He had a way of looking attentive, docile, and interested as a child’s fresh wonder; but no one would mistake the expression for the admiration of inexperience or incapacity; yet it cheated many a talker into self-complaisance that lost him his opportunity of learning something of the man which he wanted to know. This was the thing in his demeanor which people called reserve: the reserve of absorbed attentiveness he had; but there was nothing of strained reticence in his manner…. Dr. Kane was a marksman, a brilliant horseman, and a first-rate pedestrian. Foot-tramps, and the chase without the usual relish for its accompaniments, were a passion with him. Horses and dogs were something more than pets and indulgences to him; but, much as he enjoyed the exercise and excitement of the forest and field, he was tender to the objects and instruments of the chase to an extent that verged on sentimentalism; but there was nothing of this in his composition.

  Of Kane’s conduct under the exceptionally prolonged and adverse circumstances attendant on his second Arctic voyage, it is to be said that he displayed the characteristics of a high and noble character. Considerate of his subordinates, assiduous in performing his multifarious duties as a commander, studying ever to alleviate the mental and physical ailments of his crew, and always unsparing of himself whenever exposure to danger, hardships, or privations promised definite results. It is not astonishing that these qualities won and charmed all his associates, equals or subordinates, and that they followed him unhesitatingly into the perils and dangers that Kane’s enthusiastic and optimistic nature led him to brave, with the belief that to will was to do.

  The public estimate of Dr. Kane was shown throughout the civilized world in various forms: by the gift of a service of silver from the Queen, by the medals and decorations of learned societies, by resolutions of Congress, and the State legislatures, by countless poetical tributes and eulogies, and at the last by a long funeral triumph from New Orleans to Philadelphia, with the learned, the noble, and the good everywhere mingling in its train. I need not here dwell upon the well-known traits of his character—his magnetic personality, his indomitable energy, his masterful will, his marvellous tact in emergencies, his courage and patience and generosity, his genial humor, his love of science and research, his devotion to the highest interests of humanity, and that religious faith which sustained him in the darkest hours. Such traits did not merely shine before the world, but on a nearer view, where there could be neither applause nor ambition—in unrecorded kindness toward dependents upon whom he lavished his bounty, and protégés whom he sought to refine and elevate. If ever in any such instance his aims may have seemed quixotic in the eyes of the prudent they could have exposed him to the serious misapprehension of none but inferior souls.

General

  The book is really magnificent. I do not think that I have ever met with one which gives such vivid pictures of Arctic scenery. Nay, I am quite sure that I never did; and indeed, I feel that I owe you more thanks for it, and for your warm-hearted inscription, and your memorial of me in the wilderness, than I could well inclose in as many words; so I will say nothing about it, only beg you to accept that volume of my poems containing the line which (as C. Weld writes) came into your mind when you stood first before the great minaret.

  I am reading Dr. Kane’s book. Six pages could give all the actual knowledge it contains; but that fearful conflict of men with the most terrible powers of nature, and so bravely sustained, makes the story like tragedy; and I read on and on, the same thing over and over, and don’t skip a page.

  Next to “Dred” we read Dr. Kane’s books, the two volumes of the Arctic expedition. Oh, how we did enjoy that! Full of beautiful pictures taken on the spot by Dr. Kane himself, which we looked at together and admired and commented upon and enjoyed as much as they could be enjoyed by anybody. Brave, splendid Dr. Kane! We watch the papers for every bit of news of him which floats to us from that far-off tropical Cuba where he has gone to recover, if he can, from the everlasting chill he got among the icebergs with the thermometer seventy-five degrees below zero!

  If it were possible, and at the same time comfortable to the purpose and limits of this memoir, to digest the results which are in danger of being overlooked by the general reader, it would be a labor of love to endeavor its accomplishment; but that service must be rendered to the public and to the memory of Dr. Kane as an author and cultivator of physical science under other conditions. I expect, as I hope, that it will be done by a more competent hand. The mass of unedited manuscript left by Dr. Kane will some day be material for a work such as he would have executed, whenever the man shall be found to supply the loss which natural science sustained by his early removal from his own great field of labor. Variously endowed as he was for observing and resolving the phenomena of nature, and skilled as he was, beyond all men equally qualified for collecting the data, in the art of writing for general instruction, the loss to the public in this unfulfilled purpose of writing a book of Arctic science such as would have satisfied himself, is beyond estimate, and, it is to be feared, will never be wholly supplied.

  Lastly Dr. Kane performed those extraordinary researches beyond the head of Baffin’s Bay which obtained for him our gold medal at the last anniversary, the highest eulogy of our late President, and the unqualified admiration of all geographers. At that time, however, we had not perused those thrilling pages which have since brought to our mind’s eye the unparalleled combination of genius with patient endurance and fortitude which enabled this young American to save the lives of his associates. With what simplicity, what fervor, what eloquence, and what truth, he has described the sufferings and perils from which he extricated his ice-bound crew, is now duly appreciated, and you must all agree with me that in the whole history of literature there never was a work written which more feelingly develops the struggles of humanity under the most intense sufferings, or demonstrates more strikingly how the most appalling difficulties can be overcome by the union of a firm resolve with the never-failing resources of a bright intellect.

  The superiority of mind to body never had a more striking illustration than in the case of Dr. Kane. He triumphed by sheer energy of will. The fiery spirit which might have worn out others quickened and exalted him. In his vivid conceptions and striking language he was essentially a poet—one of those who live thrice the life of common men in quickness and sensibility. So that we may not pronounce his life short or his death untimely. His eager spirit wrung from fate a triumphant experience seldom granted even to fourscore. He achieved fame and success in the eye of the world in a noble sphere of action, and has left a most enduring monument of his exertions in his truthful and eloquent writings.

  Dr. Kane’s merits, not merely as a naturalist and a daring explorer, but as a writer, are conspicuous in his works, especially in his account of the second expedition. The narrative of the dangers and sufferings of the party is given with a simplicity and vividness that place the work in the foremost rank of descriptive writings.

  Unquestionably one of the most remarkable men of his age.

  Dr. Kane reached New York, Oct. 11, 1855. He prepared his narrative of the journey for the press, the sales of the book the first year reaching sixty-five thousand copies. He wrote to his friend and publisher, George W. Childs: “The book, poor as it is, has been my coffin.”

  He has enriched our literature with two octavo volumes which are not only valuable as scientific records, but as mere narratives will always have the charm of Robinson Crusoe for the young and the old; and though his own Arctic discoveries and theories should be obscured by further explorations, his fame will rest upon his rare illustration of that sentiment of philanthropy which is the chief glory of our nature.