Merrill was apparently on Kane’s 2d expedition for which he kept a journal and meteorological record (p. 14), and worked with Dr. Vreeland in observing auroras (p. 18-9, citing Kane I, p. 425)
p. 8, on hollow earth theories: That there are yet undiscovered continents teeming with animal and vegetable life, the inhabitants of which may enjoy all the advantages that we enjoy, seems to me more than probable. The evidence is abundant and clear that this earth is not a solid sphere, but a hollow world, more flattened at the extremities than is usually admitted; that it is open at the northern and southern extremities admitting heat, light, air and space inside; that there are continents and oceans within as habitable and navigable as those on the outside.
p. 24-25: Morton and Hans: Here he fastened to his walking-pole the Grinnell flag of the Antarctic—a well-cherished little relic, which had now followed me on two Polar voyages…. it had accompanied Commodore Wilkes in his far-southern discovery of the Antarctic continent. It was now its strange destiny to float over the highest northern land, not only of America but of our globe. Side by side with this were our Masonic emblems of the compass and the square.
p. 26-27: “It is now a generally received opinion that there is an open Polar Sea at the north pole. The evidence on this point received since the first Grinnell Expedition has been so abundant as to leave no doubt of its existence. It has been a topic of theory for over two hundred years… The sky of Baffin’s Bay, though but eight hundred miles from the Polar limit of all northernness, is as warm as the bay of Naples after a June rain.