Behring's Strait, the surgeon declared that nothing but a warmer climate would save his life. The ice had but just left the southern shores of this island and was gradually moving to the northward, which it appears is its usual course every year, but is hastened or delayed in its progress more or less according to the prevailing winds and the strength with which they blow. Being thus nearly a month too soon to afford any prospect of immediate access to the inlet on the northern side of Cape Prince of Wales, and his health daily getting worse, he was reluctantly compelled to return with his little bark, and to make the best of his way home round the Cape of Good Hope.

In the course of his circumnavigation, Lieutenant Kotzebue has made several interesting discoveries of new groups of islands in the Pacific; and he has done that which for the first time has been effected, namely, taking the temperature of the sea at the surface and at a certain depth at a particular hour every day, both on the outward and homeward voyage.

It is greatly to the credit of Lieutenant Kotzebue that, after a voyage of three years, in every variety of climate, he has brought back again every man of his little crew, with the exception of one who embarked in a sickly state.

* From personal conversation with Lieutenant Kotzebue.

lity of reaching this northern extremity of the earth's axis: it was resolved, therefore, to fit out two distinct expeditions; the one to proceed up the middle of Davis's Strait to a high northern latitude and then to stretch across to the westward, in the hope of being able to pass the northern extremity of America, and reach Behring's Strait by that route; the other to proceed directly north, between Greenland and Spitzbergen, and in the event of meeting with an open polar sea, free from land, in which case it was hoped it would also be free from ice, to proceed direct for Behring's Strait, by which route the distance would be shorter than the other by nearly one-third.

The ships fitted out for exploring the north-west passage were the Isabella, of 382 tons, commanded by Captain JOHN Ross, and the Alexander, of 252 tons, under the orders of Lieutenant WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY. Those destined for the polar passage were the Dorothea, of 370 tons, commanded by Captain DAVID BUCHAN, and the Trent, of 250 tons, under the command of Lieutenant JOHN FRANKLIN; to each ship there was also appointed an additional Lieutenant and two master's mates or midshipmen. Two of these Lieutenants are the sons of two eminent artists, one of the late Mr. Hoppner and the other of Sir William Beechey, and both of them excellent draughtsmen,

The four ships were all fitted out as strong as wood and iron could make them, and every regard paid in the internal arrangement to the comfort

and accommodation of the officers and crews. They were stored with provisions and fuel for two years; supplied with additional quantities of fresh preserved meats, tea, sugar, sago, and other articles of a similar kind. Each of the larger ships had a surgeon and a surgeon's assistant, and the two smaller vessels an assistant surgeon each. A master and a mate accustomed to the Greenland fishery were engaged for each ship, to act as pilots when they should meet with ice. The whole complement of men, including officers, seamen, and marines in each of the larger ships was fiftysix, and in the smaller forty. Captain Sabine, of the Royal Artillery, an officer well versed in mathematics and astronomy and in the practical use of instruments, was recommended by the President and Council of the Royal Society, and in consequence thereof engaged, to proceed with the northwest expedition; and Mr. Fisher, of the University of Cambridge, a gentleman well versed in mathematics and various branches of natural knowledge, to accompany the polar one. A number of new and valuable instruments were prepared for making observations in all the departments of science, and for conducting philosophical experiments and investigations; in order that, in the event of the main object of the voyage being defeated either through accident or from utter impracticability, every possible attention might be paid to the advancement of science, and correct

JOHN ROSS, DAVID BUCHAN, WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY AND JOHN FRANKLIN. 1818.

In the whole series of expeditions for the discovery of a northern communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, none have been fitted out on so extensive a scale, or so completely equipped in every respect, as the two which left England this present year. From the numerous attempts that have been made from the earliest periods of British navigation to the end of the eighteenth century, it is sufficiently evident that the discovery of a north-west passage to India and China has always been considered as an object peculiarly British, It engaged the attention and procured the encouragement of the first literary characters of the age, and the most respectable of the mercantile class. It has received the patronage of sovereigns, and the promise of rewards from different parliaments. It never failed to excite a most lively interest among all conditions of men. The principal maritime nations of Europe have at different times been engaged in the same enterprize; and even Russia, as we have seen, nay, a private individual of Russia, has recently fitted out a ship at his own cost, for the discovery of a communication between the two oceans by a passage round North America.

It would therefore have been something worse

than indifference, if, in a reign which stands proudly pre-eminent for the spirit in which voyages of discovery have been conducted, England had quietly looked on, and suffered another nation to accomplish almost the only interesting discovery that remains to be made in geography, and one to which her old navigators were the first the

to open

way.

A circumstance occurred which encouraged the fitting out an expedition of discovery at this particular time. For the last three years, very unusual quantities of the polar ice had been observed to float down into the Atlantic; and in the year 1817 the eastern coast of Greenland, which is supposed to have been shut up with ice for four centuries, was found to be accessible from the 70th to the 80th degree of latitude, and the intermediate sea between it and Spitzbergen entirely open in the latter parallel.* This disappearance of the arctic ice from a very considerable extent of the Greenland seas was deemed to be favourable for making a new experiment, and to hold out the hope of a successful issue; particularly in the attempt to approach the north pole, which, notwithstanding the failure of the late Lord Mulgrave, is considered by many as being by no means a hopeless enterprize. The opinion of the learned, and the experience of the whale-fishers, have long been in favour of an open polar sea, and of the practicabi

* A Hamburgh ship actually sailed along this track.