118 ' IN THE FROZEN SEAS,

and it required the most painful efforts of the whole
party to liberate it from the snow between them, Dr.
Hayes returned on June 1, and a few days later. Morton
left the brig, to survey the Greenland coast beyond the
Great Glacier. The difficulties were great, for, beside
the usual impediments of hummocks, the lateness of
the season had in many places rendered the ice ex-
tremely unsafe, or even entirely destroyed the ice-ledge
along the shore. Thus for the last days of his onward
journey he was obliged to toil over the rocks and along
the beach of a sea which, like the familiar waters of
the south, dashed in waves at his feet. Morton and his
Esquimau companion reached, on June 26, 1854, Cape
Constitution, a bold headland, where the surf rolled
furiously against high overhanging cliffs, which it was
found impossible to pass. Climbing from rock to rock,
in hopes of doubling the promontory, Morton stood at
this termination of his journey, and from a height of
300 feet looked out upon a great waste of waters,
stretching to the unknown north. Numerous birds—
sea-swallows, kittiwakes, brent-geese—mixed their dis-
cordant notes with the novel music of dashing waves;
and among the flowering plants growing on the rocks
was found a crucifer (Hesperis pygmaa), the dried pods
of which, still containing seed, had survived the wear
and tear of winter. From Cape Constitution the coast
of Washington Land trended to the east, but far to the
northwest, beyond the open waters of the channel, a
peak, terminating a range of mountains similar in their
features to those of Spitzbergen, was seen towering to
a height of from 2500 to 3000 feet. This peak, the
most remote northern land at that time known upon
our globe, received the name of Mount Parry.