sufficient nourishing food, their men became reduced to a deplorable state from the fatal effects of scurvy and other diseases. It seems active, cheerful employment is preservative of health, even at a low temperature, while indolent habits and despondent feelings induce disease.* In all these cases, hard work and exposure had alike been undergone. Others say, prolonged stay in the Arctic regions, even under favourable circumstances, destroys the constitution. We presume not to venture an opinion, but the three following instances of lengthened sojourn there may be quoted; others might be given. The well-known missionary, Hans Egede, lived twenty-five years in Greenland. Capt. (now Major-General) Sabine, in a letter to the President of the Royal Society, incidentally mentions a Mr. Sharostin, a Russian, who had passed thirty-nine winters on Spitzbergen, and resided there for seventeen years without having once left the island.† The Governor of Greenland, in 1854, had been there twenty-nine years.‡ Seeing, then, there is reasonable probability that some of the unfortunate crews of the Erebus and Terror may still survive, the imagination shrinks, is shocked, at the barbarous thought of forsaking them. All that is good, just, and humane, pleads for those who cannot make their voices heard at home. England sent them forth to solve a Great Problem, in which she had identified herself and the chivalrous exertions of her sons for three centuries; nations looked on and admired her mighty efforts, her persevering constancy, and her heroic daring. Her conduct created a world-wide interest; shall it be said of her, then, that, in the end, when those whom she sent on the glorious but perilous mission returned not, but remained unrecovered through misdirected effort-shall it be said, when led by their spirit, those who sought them solved the Great Question in the pursuit, and that then, without proof, she pronounced them dead and deserted them? O let not this shame fall on England!

We are indebted to Captain Collinson for the subjoined note of the average number on the sick list on board H.M.S. Enterprise, during the years she was in the Arctic regions. Latitudes between 68° and 73° :

From June, 1851, to June, 1852, average number, 3.35, or, per cent., 5.5

By the late Admiral Beechey, p. 349.

+ See "A Voyage to the North Pole." See Blue Book, "Further Papers Relative to Recent Arctic Expeditions, 1855,"

p. 3.

424

CHAPTER XVIII.

HAS ALL BEEN DONE THAT CAN BE DONE?-DR. KING'S PLANMR. FINDLAY'S OPINION-CAPT. BECHER'S REFLECTIONS-LADY FRANKLIN DR. KANE'S OPINIONS-CAPT. RICHARDS'S PLANMEMORIAL TO LORD PALMERSTON-LORD WROTTESLEY-LIEUTENANT PIM'S PLAN-DR. KING AND LIEUTENANT PIM'S UNITED PLANS-CLOSE OF YEAR 1856.

WE Come to the second question, Has all been done that can be done? This question involves the nation's honour. While that space, Melville Sound, through which Franklin and his companions were directed to push their way to accomplish the great object of their voyage remains unsearched, all that can be done has not been done. What efforts will be made to clear the gloom and unfold the fate of our deeply-lamented countrymen, pursuing the sad subject we follow to the end. The fatal news of Rae, and the relinquishment of the search at a time when, the clue having been furnished, it was most important that it should be continued, confounded, prostrated for the moment-it was but for a moment; the widow was stricken but lived, and men there were, too, who still thought and felt, and, however afflicting the intelligence received, however cold and repulsive, those on whom particularly devolved the guardianship of our lost sailors, still seeing that nothing certain was known as to the fate of the Franklin Expedition as a whole, they resolved still to persist to "do unto others as they would others should do unto them," they could not believe that all had perished; and until the fact was placed beyond doubt, they could not rest satisfied that all had been done that should be done. Various publications, tending to prove that Sir John Franklin followed his Instructions, thus vindicating that good man from absurd "intentions" opposed to them, arose. Offers of service and plans of search followed; these we will record; but, before doing so, would notice the new ideas that had sprung up. Strange as it may appear, and notwithstanding the severe lesson we had been taught, the mania in favour of the north had no sooner passed away than conjecture (as usual, without proof) rushed heedlessly on to the south, and fixed her restless wanderings in Peel's Sound; through

this doubtful sound she traced the course of the Franklin Expedition, and in its vicinity the scene of its catastrophe. Melville Sound still remained as though it had never been the prominent feature of the original plan. Fortunately, circumstances combined in our favour; the prognosticated horrors of Melville Sound were neutralized by the easiness of approach of Regent's Inlet, or again disappointing results might have followed. The complete search of the one will accomplish all that remains as necessary to be examined of the other. The space is limited, and apparently accessible by Bellot's Strait for boats, if not for a vessel; therefore we have renewed hope.

January 21st, 1856, Dr. Richard King* again addressed the Admi-. ralty, offering, for the fifth time, to lead a party down the Great Fish River, to examine the cache he constructed on Montreal Island, under the name of "King Cache," when he was there with Sir George Back in 1834. Dr. King says the existence of his cache was known to Franklin, and it is his "firm belief that he, or the leading survivor of the Expedition, crossed over from Point Ogle for the purpose of searching this cache, and of depositing there a record of his visit. The fact that no papers were found in the hands of the Esquimaux is in itself strong presumption that the records of the Expedition had been deposited in a place of safety." He adds, " In all human probability a history of the Franklin Expedition still lies buried in my cache beneath the rocky shores of Montreal Island, and that it is within the bounds of probability that this record may be recovered." It seems scarcely probable that thirty-five or forty men should linger and die of starvation without placing their books and papers en cache, unless, taken by surprise and cut off, they had not time to do it, or having deposited them, it had been discovered and pillaged by the natives.

The Admiralty, January 28th, "acquaint Dr. King that they do not think it advisable to undertake such an expedition."

January 8th, 1856, a very interesting paper, "On the Probable Course Pursued by Sir John Franklin," by A. G. Findlay, Esq., was read before the Royal Geographical Society. The object of this paper is to show that Sir John Franklin, following his Instructions,

* See "Further Papers relative to the Recent Arctic Expeditions, 1856," p. 31. + See "Royal Geographical Society's Journal, 1856," vol. 26, p. 26, et seq.; also, the Appendix to the above Paper, March 21, 1857, see pp. 1-6; also, “Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society," No. 1, p. 21; and a paper by Captain Irminger, of the Danish Navy, "The Arctic Current around Greenland," Royal Geographical Society's Journal, 1856, vol. 26, p. 36.

entered Melville Sound, and there became imbedded in the pack, as did Captain Kellett in the Resolute (1854), and that, under the influence of the persistent easterly current, the Erebus and Terror, like the Resolute, drifted down Barrow's Strait into Baffin's Bay, down Davis's Strait, and were the two ships seen by the Renovation in the ice-floe off Newfoundland in 1851. The arguments are too numerous and extended for us to repeat here by which this conclusion is come to, but we may notice the chief. Referring to a paper read by the author before the British Association at Liverpool, he says, "It was there shown that the warm waters of the equatorial regions passed to the north-eastward, round by the North Cape of Europe, along the northern face of Siberia, and thence on to the archipelago which lies on the north-east coast of America, pouring into Baffin's Bay by the various channels from a north-western direction; another portion passing north of Greenland, and then southward along its eastern coast round Cape Farewell, and afterwards, meeting the Baffin's Bay current, forming the Labrador current, down to and over the Newfoundland Banks to beneath the Gulf Stream. . The certain inference was," he adds, "that whatever is floatable in the so-called Arctic Basin must, at some period or in some form, pass out" to the southward, or be drifted on to its shores. Having shown the direction and influence of the currents, he then notices the drifting fragments found by Rae, Collinson, Penny, and Goodsir, to prove there is not in them any evidence that the Erebus and Terror “have met with any fatal disaster;" and then, in the explorations that have been made, that the ships were not detained on the shores of Peel's Sound, or on the north or the southwest coasts of Prince of Wales' Land, or that they proceeded southeast out of Melville Sound (?) He then notices the report and sketch of the Esquimaux at Pond's Bay of four ships in the ice, looks on the two easternmost as Sir James Ross's at Port Leopold, from being in an inclosed space, and the two with their topmasts struck as Franklin's, more to the westward; notes the severe seasons, 1848 and 1849, and the consequent slow drift, and also the state of the ice in Wellington Channel, the absence of traces, &c., and says, " In any case it may be asserted they ultimately reached Melville Sound;" he points to the improbability of their being in Victoria Strait, or Peel's Sound, or Regent's Inlet, and observes, "Of the ships themselves not the slightest vestige has been found, which may be referred to their destruction." He then remarks on the two ships seen on the ice-floe, and the credibility of the report, from authorities, and the possibility of the occurrence; the perfect consistency of such an appearance with phy

sical phenomena, and then gives numerous examples to prove the fact of drift, route, and rate, and applying these data to the ice-borne ships, and taking the slowest and the quickest rate of drift, he places the Erebus and Terror in Melville Sound, and that they may have passed unobserved down Barrow's Strait after Sir James Ross's departure, and before the arrival of Captain (Admiral) Austin's Expedition.

March, 1856.-At this time a very excellent paper, "Reflections on Sir John Franklin's Expedition, and where his Ships were most probably Beset in the Ice," by Captain Becher, R.N.,* appeared in the "Nautical Magazine."+ After noticing the entire want of success of our searching expeditions, the author says: "A strange fatality has followed them. We have been unable to succour them in their distress; and no sooner was the search relinquished, . than a sudden light was thrown on the subject by the relics" (Dr. Rae's) "that were brought to us, showing us too plainly where the search had not been made!" He says: "Let us try to trace them.

are not new.

The materials They have been before us from the commencement, but they have been rejected and unheeded, because they were unconnected and not likely; besides, they came from Esquimaux, who are looked on as no high authority! Yet these reports-considered in connection with the expressions of Franklin, the expressed opinions of the highest authorities on Arctic matters generally, the vestiges of wreck and the relics of the party that have been found-become consistent, and contribute to form a mass of evidence, showing the probability of Franklin's unhappy position that could scarcely have been expected." The author then, noticing their arrival at Beechey Island, says, "The advocates of the Wellington Channel route have concluded, that as soon as possible the ships passed that way, and thence into the Polar Sea. But in support of this view not one atom of evidence has been found in all the search that has been made. There is, however, certain circumstantial evidence that renders it more than probable that Sir John Franklin did adopt the route to the south-west, and had long been in a position from whence no tidings could be obtained of him ;-that while he has been sought for on the shores of the north he has been in the south, irrevocably fixed in the ice." He then notices Dr. King's plan, Sir James Ross's failure and the two precious years lost, then Captain (Admiral) Austin's Expedition and

* Author of "The Landfall of Columbus," &c., &c.

See the number for March, 1856, pp. 121-147, with Map.