INTRODUCTION.

THE interest aroused both in this country and Europe, in regard to Sir John Franklin and his associates, has in no degree diminished by the failure of the various Exploring Expeditions, to ascertain the fate of the great navigator. His well known intrepidity, his great experience and knowledge of the Arctic regions, the abundant supplies with which he was furnished, the various casualties which may have excluded him from the observation of subsequent navigators, and above all, the traces which have been discovered of him, have kept alive hopes, which, under other circumstances, in the long lapse of time would have been utterly extinguished. The

heroic woman, whose devotion to her gallant husband has made her name a household word in two continents, whose appeals in his behalt' have touched all hearts, and filled all eyes with tears, whose conduct has added another illustration of conjugal affection, of indomitable perseverance and courage, to the long list of examples of woman's faith and woman's fortitude, the wife of the lost Franklin still hopes. She cannot believe that the sea has swallowed the gallant company under the guidance of her husband, or that the frosts of the Pole have benumbed their energies; no mounds of snow and ice are seen by her, as marking the place where they await the voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God; before the vision of her mind, the frost-bound voyagers still appear, watching for some friendly sail in the open channels of the frozen seas, still husbanding their resources, still hoping against hope. She beholds them manfully struggling with the difficulties of their position, seeking, during the short summer of the high latitudes, an avenue of escape, and engaged in the winter in protecting themselves from the cold, by walls of snow, and renewing their clothing with the spoils of the shaggy monarch of those solitudes, the polar bear, whose capture stimulates their energies and

invigorates their powers. While such a hope is strong in the soul of this noble woman, it will live in the hearts of all christendom until the lost are restored to home and kindred, or their graves are found, and their forms, untouched by decay, recognized by the hardy mariners who brave the dangers of an Arctic Sea. Who can tell if this lost company have not broken through into that open Ocean which is said to spread out beyond the barrier of ice, and found there a new world from which they cannot return to relate the story of their marvelous voyage? Who knows if they are not now reposing upon some island of that unknown Sea, where a modified climate, and a fertile soil furnish all the necessaries of life, or are vainly coasting along that wall of ice through which they unexpectedly entered, and from which they hope to escape by some opening like that in which they came? Perhaps, curiosity overcoming love of home and kindred, they have explored or are now exploring the unknown world upon which they have been permitted to enter, mapping its islands and bays, or passing on to the pole itself, full of high thoughts of the undying fame that will reward their toils, when the story of their return and their discoveries shall astonish the world, as when the

daring Genoese brought back to Spain and Europ the proofs of the existence of the continent which should have borne his name.

The discovery of a northwest passage to the Indies, was the first object of the daring navigators who explored the northern seas; the pursuit of the whale has since led a multitude of vessels among the icebergs and ice-fields of the frozen ocean. Any further expenditure of treasure, or hazard of life for the former purpose is uncalled for a mere waste of material and a tempting of providence. Enough is

known to settle the question that any passage forced through those seas to Asia, would be too hazardous and too uncertain to render it of the least commercial advantage. The path to China marked out by nature, or rather by the God of nature, is by the isthmus which separates North and South America, and all ideas of an available northwest passage are. simply Utopian. For the perfecting of the geography of the earth, for the purpose of ascertaining whether an open ocean, and a modified climate, and a productive soil are to be found beyond the fields of ice, may be worthy the efforts of civilized nations, yet it might be questioned whether the hardships of the navigation, and the risk of life in those remote

solitudes, would not justify an abandonment of a region guarded by such awful barriers, which could only be passed occasionally in the lapse of years. If it should appear, that a land like the garden of Eden lay beyond the domain of frost, how could it be made practically accessible, or used for the benefit of mankind? Would it not forever remain like that hidden city in the desert, which, according to the eastern fable, is concealed from all passers by, and only some favored traveler is perhaps once in a century permitted to gaze upon its deserted streets and behold its towers and palaces; or like the lost Atlantis, would it not be discovered only to disappear forever?

For the rescue of the long lost company of Sir John Franklin, or for the purpose of ascertaining their fate, too much can hardly be done. In such an enterprise, the noblest sympathies of our nature cannot fail to be enlisted, and higher and more worthy of remembrance than the conflict of arms, or the rivalry of the nations in their fabrics at the recent great fair of the world in the modern Babylon, has been the competition between England and the United States, in the voyages of discovery for the great arctic navigator, and his companions. In