She sailed in June 1853, and passing up Smith Sound at the head of Baffin Bay advanced into the enclosed sea which now bears the name of Kane Basin, thus establishing the Polar route of many future Arctic expeditions.
The ridge across Denmark Strait west of Iceland nowhere exceeds 300 fathoms in depth, so that the deeper water of the North Polar Basin is effectively separated from that of the Atlantic. A third small basin occupies Baffin Bay and contains a maximum depth of 1050 fathoms. Depths of from loo to 300 fathoms are not uncommon amongst the channels of the Arctic Archipelago north of North America, and Bering Strait, through which the surface water of the Arctic Sea meets that of the Pacific, is only 28 fathoms deep.
It frequents the Scandinavian coasts, entering the Baltic in the summer; and is found as far north as Baffin's Bay and as far west as the coasts of the United States.
On the west Davis Strait and Baffin Bay separate it from Baffin Land.
A similar submarine ridge unites it with the Cumberland Peninsula of Baffin Land, across Davis Strait.