for we now know that a winter in the ice may be passed not only in safety but in health and comfort."

Not one winter alone, but two and three have been passed with health and safety in these seas, under a wise and careful commander.

FRANKLIN'S SECOND EXPEDITION, 1825-26.

UNDAUNTED by the hardships and sufferings he had encountered in his previous travels, with a noble spirit of ardour and enthusiasm, Captain Franklin determined to prosecute the chain of his former discoveries from the Coppermine river to the most western point of the Arctic regions. A sea expedition, under the command of Captain Beechey, was at the same time sent round Cape Horn to Behring's Straits, to co-operate with Parry and Franklin, so as to furnish provisions to the former, and a conveyance home to the latter.

Captain Franklin's offer was therefore accepted by the government, and leaving Liverpool in February, 1825, he arrived at New York about the middle of March. The officers under his orders were his old and tried companions and fellow sufferers in the former journey-Dr. Richardson and Lieutenant Back, with Mr. E. N. Kendal, a mate in the navy, who had been out in the Griper with Capt. Lyon, and Mr. T. Drummond, a naturalist. Four boats, specially prepared for the purposes of the expedition, were sent out by the Hudson's Bay Company's ship.

In July, 1825, the party arrived at Fort Chipewyan. It is unnecessary to go over the ground and follow them in their northern journey; suffice it to say, they reached Great Bear Lake in safety, and erected a winter dwelling on its western shore, to which the name of Fort Franklin was given. To Back and Mr. Dease, an officer in the Hudson's Bay Company's service, were entrusted the arrangements for their winter quarters.

From here a small party set out with Franklin down the Mackenzie to examine the state of the Polar Sea. On the 5th of September they got back to their companions, and prepared to pass the long winter of seven or eight months.

On the 28th of June, 1826, the season being sufficiently advanced, and all their preparations completed, the whole party got away in four boats to descend the Mackenzie to the Polar Sea. Where the river branches off into several channels, the party separated on the 3rd of July, Captain Franklin and Lieutenant Back, with two boats and fourteen men, having with them the faithful Esquimaux interpreter,

Augustus, who had been with them on the former expedi tion, proceeded to the westward, while Dr. Richardson' and Mr. Kendal in the other two boats, having ten men under their command, set out in an easterly direction to search the Coppermine river.

Franklin arrived at the mouth of the Mackenzie on the 7th of July, where he encountered a large tribe of fierce Esquimaux, who pillaged his boats, and it was only by great caution, prudence, and forbearance, that the whole party were not massacred. After getting the boats afloat, and clear of these unpleasant visitors, Franklin pursued his survey, a most tedious and difficult one, for more than a month; he was only able to reach a point in latitude 70° 24' N. longitude 149° 37′ W., to which Back's name was given; and here prudence obliged him to return, although, strangely enough, a boat from the Blossom was waiting not 160 miles west of his position to meet with him. The extent of coast surveyed was 374 miles. The return journey to Fort Franklin was safely accomplished, and they arrived at their house on the 21st of September, when they found Richardson and Kendal had returned on the first of the month, having accomplished a voyage of about 500 miles, or 902 by the coast line, between the 4th of July and the 8th of August. They had pushed forward beyond the strait named after their boats the Dolphin and Union.

In ascending the Coppermine, they had to abandon their boats and carry their provisions and baggage.

Having passed another winter at Fort Franklin, as soon as the season broke up the Canadians were dismissed, and the party returned to England.

The cold experienced in the last winter was intense, the thermometer standing at one time at 58° below zero, but having now plenty of food, a weather-tight dwelling, and good health, they passed it cheerfully. Dr. Richardson gave a course of lectures on practical geology, and Mr. Drummond furnished information on natural history. During the winter, in a solitary hut on the Rocky Mountains, he managed to collect 200 specimens of birds, animals, &c., and more than 1500 of plants.

When Captain Franklin left England to proceed on this expedition he had to undergo a severe struggl between the feelings of affection and a sense of du His wife (he has been married twice) was then lying the point of death, and indeed died the day after he le England. But with heroic fortitude she urged his der a ture at the very day appointed, entreating him, as

was

valued her peace and his own glory, not to delay a moment on her account. His feelings, therefore, may be inferred, but not described, when he had to elevate on Garry Island a silk flag which she had made and given him as a parting gift, with the instruction that he was only to hoist it on reaching the Polar Sea.

BEECHEY'S VOYAGE.-1826-28.

H.M. SLOOP Blossom, 26, Captain F. W. Beechey, sailed from Spithead on the 19th of May, 1825, and her instructions directed her, after surveying some of the islands in the Pacific, to be in Behring's Straits by the summer or autumn of 1826, and contingently in that of 1827.

It is foreign to my purpose here to allude to those parts of her voyage anterior to her arrival in the Straits.

On the 28th of June the Blossom came to an anchor off the town of Petropolowski, where she fell in with the Russian ship of war Modeste, under the command of Baron Wrangel, so well known for his enterprise in the hazardous expedition by sledges over the ice to the northward of Cape Shelatskoi, or Errinos.

Captain Beechey here found despatches informing him of the return of Parry's expedition. Being beset by currents and other difficulties, it was not till the 5th of July that the Blossom got clear of the harbour, and made the best of her way to Kotzebue Sound, reaching the appointed rendezvous at Chamiso Island on the 25th. After landing and burying a barrel of flour upon Puffin Rock, the most unfrequented spot about the island, the Blossom occupied the time in surveying and examining the neighbouring coasts to the north east. On the 30th she took her departure from the island, erecting posts or land-marks, and burying despatches at Cape Krusenstern, near a cape which he named after Franklin, near Icy Cape. The ship returned to the rendezvous on the evening of the 28th of August. The barrel of flour had been dug up, and appropriated by the natives.

On the first visit of one of these parties, they constructed a chart of the coast upon the sand, of which, however, Captain Beechey at first took very little notice. "They, however, renewed their labour, and performed eir work upon the sandy beach in a very ingenious and lligible manner. The coast line was first marked out With a stick, and the distances regulated by the day's journey. The hills and ranges of mountains were next shown by elevations of sand or stone, and the islands

represented by heaps of pebbles, their proportions being duly attended to. As the work proceeded some of the bystanders occasionally suggested alterations, and Captain Beechey moved one of the Diomede Islands, which was misplaced. This was at first objected to by the hydrographer, but one of the party recollecting that the islands were seen in one from Cape Prince of Wales, confirmed its new position and made the mistake quite evident to the others, who were much surprised that Captain Beechey should have any knowledge of the subject. When the mountains and islands were erected, the villages and fishing-stations were marked by a number of sticks placed upright, in imitation of those which are put up on the coast wherever these people fix their abode. In time, a complete hydrographical plan was drawn from Cape Derby to Cape Krusenstern.

This ingenuity and accuracy of description on the part of the Esquimaux is worthy of particular remark, and has been verified by almost all the Arctic explorers.

The barge which had been despatched to the eastward, under charge of Mr. Elson, reached to lat. 71° 23′ 31′′ N., and long. 156° 21' 30" W., when she was stopped by the ice which was attached to the shore. The farthest tongue of land they reached, was named Point Barrow, and is about 126 miles north-east of Icy Cape, being only about 150 or 160 miles from Franklin's discoveries west of the Mackenzie river.

The wind suddenly changing to south-west, the compact body of ice began to drift with the current to the northeast at the rate of 3 miles an hour, and Mr. Elson, finding it difficult to avoid large floating masses of ice, was obliged to come to an anchor to prevent being driven back. "It was not long before he was so closely beset in the ice, thatno clear water could be seen in any direction from the hills, and the ice continuing to press against the shore, his vessel was driven upon the beach, and there left upon her broadside in a most helpless condition; and to add to his cheerless prospect, the disposition of the natives, whom he found to increase in numbers as he advanced to the northward, was of a very doubtful character. At Point Barrow, where they were very numerous, their overbearing behaviour, and the thefts they openly practised, left no doubt of what would be the fate of his little crew, in the event of their' falling into their power. They were in this dilemma several days, during which every endeavour was made to extricate the vessel but without effect, and Mr. Elson contemplated sinking her secretly in a lake that was near, to

prevent her falling into the hands of the Esquimaux, and then making his way along the coast in a baidar, which he had no doubt he should be able to purchase from the natives. At length, however, a change of wind loosened the ice, and after considerable labour and trial, in which the personal strength of the officers was united to that of the seamen, Mr. Elson, with his shipmates, fortunately succeeded in effecting their escape.

Captain Beechey was very anxious to remain in Kotzebue Sound until the end of October, the period named in his instructions, but the rapid approach of winter, the danger of being locked up, having only five weeks' provisions left, and the nearest point at which he could replenish being some 2000 miles distant, induced his officers to concur with him in the necessity of leaving at once. A barrel of flour and other articles were buried on the sandy point of Chamiso, for Franklin, which it was hoped would escape the prying eyes of the natives.

After a cruise to California, the Sandwich Islands, Loochoo, the Bonin Islands, &c., the Blossom returned to Chamiso Island on the 5th of July, 1827. They found the flour and despatches they had left the previous year unmolested. Lieut. Belcher was despatched in the barge to explore the coast to the northward, and the ship followed her as soon as the wind permitted. On the 9th of September, when standing in for the northern shore of Kotzebue Sound, the ship drifting with the current took the ground on a sand-bank near Hotham Inlet, but the wind moderating, as the tide rose she went off the shoal apparently without injury.

After this narrow escape from shipwreck they beat up to Chamiso Island, which they reached on the 10th of September. Not finding the barge returned as expected, the coast was scanned, and a signal of distress found flying on the south-west point of Choris Peninsula, and two men waving a white cloth to attract notice. On landing, it was found that this party were the crew of the barge, which had been wrecked in Kotzebue Sound, and three of the men were also lost.

On the 29th a collision took place with the natives, which resulted in three of the seamen and four of the marines being wounded by arrows, and one of the natives led by the return fire.

After leaving advices for Franklin as before, the Blossom ally left Chamiso on the 6th of October. In a haze and ong wind she ran between the land and a shoal, and a ssage had to be forced through breakers at the imminent

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