He was senior medical officer in the First Grinnell expedition to rescue or discover the fate of the explorer Sir John Franklin.

While Cushing negotiated the Treaty of Wangxia with the Chinese, Kane and the crew of the USS Brandywine explored the island of Luzon in the Philippines.

[2] He served in the Africa Squadron[8] and in February 1847 contracted "coast fever" (most likely a strain of malaria)[2] and returned to the United States to recover.

[12] In the Fall of 1847, he petitioned Secretary of State, James Buchanan, to be assigned as a special envoy to deliver a message to General Winfield Scott in Mexico City.

Kane was deployed and received official orders from the Navy[13] with a cover story that he was being sent to Mexico City to report on military hospitals and medical conditions.

[15] Kane was present along with Edwin de Haven and William Penny at the discovery of an encampment and three graves from the Franklin expedition on Beechey Island.

[9] From 1851 to 1853, Kane spoke multiple times to audiences hundreds in size on his Arctic explorations and was well regarded due to his oratorical skills.

He convinced Grinnell and several scientific organizations to fund a second expedition to continue to explore the Arctic and search for Franklin.

At Cape Constitution he discovered the ice-free Kennedy Channel between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, later followed by Isaac Israel Hayes, Charles Francis Hall, Adolphus Greely, and Robert E. Peary in turn as they drove toward the North Pole.

[18] Although in poor health, Kane completed his second book Arctic explorations, the second Grinnell expedition in search of Sir John Franklin.

[8] Kane used his celebrity and charisma to promote the idea of an open and temperate polar sea, which he claimed to have seen, and helped to link exploration of the High Arctic with nationalism and nation-building, adding a northern frontier for the United States to conquer in the pursuit of scientific progress.

[21] After visiting England to fulfill his promise to deliver his report personally to Lady Jane Franklin, he sailed to Havana in an attempt to recover his health, after being advised to do so by his doctor.

[9] After lying in state at Independence Hall, he was transported to Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery where he was placed in the hillside family vault.

[26] The waterway between Greenland and the northernmost Canadian islands, previously named Peabody Bay, was renamed Kane Basin in his honor.

[27] The 2010 young adult book Tombstone Tea by Joanne Dahme is set in Laurel Hill Cemetery and has Kane as one of its characters.

[28] Citations Sources Further reading This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.