Captain Back's two Expeditions, one in search of Capt. Ross. 465

pedition in search of them. His offer was accepted, and leaving Liverpool, with Mr. King as surgeon and naturalist, on the 17th February 1833, he reached in good time the eastern shore of the Great Slave Lake. Setting out to discover the source of the river which was to convey him to the sea, he was obliged to cross lakes, rapids, rivers, and frightful cataracts, till he reached a lofty hill, from which he saw beneath him the splendid lake, which he called Lake Aylmer, and out of which, he was informed, one of the branches of the desired river issued. He immediately approached the main stream, but as August had nearly expired, he returned to Fort Reliance, from Slave Lake, as his winter quar

Here famine and cold again assailed him. The Indians were starving. Nine had fallen victims, and others were on the eve of perishing, when their old chief Akaitcho came to their relief. Captain Back's party were put upon greatly reduced rations, but they were supported by the hope of beginning their intended journey. When engaged in preparing for it, a messenger arrived with a packet containing the welcome intelligence of the safety of Captain Ross. On the 7th June our traveller left Fort Reliance, and succeeded in descending Back's River, (the Thlew-ee-choh,) which, after a violent and tortuous course of 530 geographical miles, through a bare and iron-ribbed country, with no fewer than eighty-three falls, cascades, and rapids, pours its waters into the Polar Sea in latitude 67° 11' north, and longitude 94° 30′ west. Captain Back intended to complete the survey of Franklin beyond Port Turnagain, but the want of food and fuel compelled him to return, and he reached Liverpool on the 8th September 1835, after an absence of two years and seven months.

Our limits will not allow us to do more than notice Captain Back's expedition in 1836-7, to promote geographical discovery in the neighbourhood of Repulse Bay. He left Chatham in the Terror with 73 men on the 14th June 1836. On the 5th of September they were firmly fixed in the ice, and on the 13th they were near the Cape Comfort of Baffin. About the end of November they were compelled to take up their winter quarters for nine months at least on a floating floe of ice, the ship being actually cradled in the ice for four successive months, and dragged about utterly helpless, always in motion, and constantly threatened to be crushed to atoms, when every soul on board must have perished. On the 11th of July the Terror burst from its icy bonds, and was gently sliding down to the water. She remained, however, on her beam ends till the 14th, when she suddenly righted, to the inexpressible joy of the crew. The whole of this voyage was of such an extraordinary character that history has recorded nothing parallel to it. The Terror, however,

crazy, broken, and leaky, was brought safely back to Lough Swilly, and Captain Back on his return received the honour of knighthood from his Majesty.

The terrible disasters which marked the expedition of Sir George Back again damped the ardour for Arctic research. For nearly eight years the north-west passage seems to have vanished from the day-dreams of Sir John Barrow, and this intrepid advocate for its existence has at last asserted that the present expedition of Sir John Franklin is likely to be the last. Among the motives by which it seems to have been prompted, and we have no doubt it took the lead, was the fear that two foreign powers who had fleets in the Pacific, might covet the moral triumph of accomplishing what we had begun, and of finding through the Polar Seas the shortest passage for their homeward bound ships then in the Pacific. But whatever were the motives of Government, it was a noble enterprise, and will ever be regarded in all its parts as an honour to the British name.

The expedition under Sir John Franklin consisted of the Erebus, and the Terror commanded by Captain Croizier. These vessels had returned from the Antarctic Expedition of Sir James Ross; and the Terror was the same vessel which we have just brought back from Repulse Bay with Captain Back. The crews of the two ships were 138 in number, and the expedition sailed from Sheerness with three years' provisions, on the 26th of May 1845, accompanied by the transport Baretto Junior, containing extra stores to be discharged in Davis' Straits. The expedition arrived at the Whale Fish Islands on the 4th of July, and it was seen on the 26th July by the whaler, Prince of Wales, in latitude 74° 48′ north, and longitude 66° 13′ west, moored to an iceberg, and waiting for an opening in the great body of ice which occupies the middle of Baffin's Bay. On the 22d of July Mr. Robert Martin, of the whale ship Enterprise, was along-side of the Erebus and Terror in latitude 75° 10′ north, and longitude 66° west. Sir John Franklin told him that he had provisions for five years, that if necessary he could make them last seven, and that he had got several casks of birds salted. Mr. Martin also states that on the 26th or 28th two parties of Sir John's officers dined with him, and told him that they expected to be out four or five, or perhaps six years. On the following day, the 27th or 28th, he received a verbal invitation to dine with Sir John, but, the wind having shifted, he was obliged to decline the invitation, and proceed on his voyage. He, however, saw the ships for two days more, that is, till the 29th or 31st. Since that time no intelligence whatever has been received from the expedition, though six years and eight months have elapsed since its departure.

Three Searching Expeditions in quest of Sir J. Franklin. 467

Until the autumn of 1847 no anxiety was felt for the safety of the expedition, but when that year closed without any intelligence from it, the public mind became highly excited, and the Government was roused to organize a searching_expedition for the purpose of discovering and relieving it. It now became a matter of deep consideration how such a search could be most effectually made, and the opinions of the most competent individuals were taken and laid before the Admiralty. Following, as he would doubtless do, his official instructions, it is not difficult to trace his probable course. He was directed to proceed with all despatch to Lancaster Sound, and after passing through it, to push on to the westward in the latitude of 74° north, without loss of time, or stopping to examine any openings to the northward till he reached Cape Walker in 98° of west longitude. He was then to use every effort to penetrate to the southward and westward of that Cape, and to pursue as direct a course to Behring's Straits as circumstances would permit him. He was warned too, not to pass by the wester extremity of Melville Island, until he had ascertained that a barrier of ice or some other obstacle closed the southward and westward route. It was therefore the opinion of Sir James Clark Ross, and also of Dr. Richardson, that the expedition had been involved in the ice, or shut up in some harbour on the coast of North America, south or south-west of Melville Island, or as Sir James Ross states in latitude 73° north, and longitude 105° west. The searching expedition was therefore fitted out, for a simultaneous search, in three divisions, proceeding from three different quarters. The Herald, under Captain Kellet, and the Plover under Captain Moore, left England in January 1848 for Behring's Straits. Sir John Richardson was directed to explore the coast of the Arctic Seas, between the Mackenzie and the Copper Mine Rivers, and the shores of Victoria and Wollaston Lands, opposite to Cape Krusenstern; and Sir James Clark Ross was sent through Lancaster Sound, to search both shores of that extensive inlet, and Barrow's Strait, and then to proceed to the westward.

During the year 1848, the Herald, Captain Kellet, and the Plover, Captain Moore, never reached their destination, the Plover from her bad sailing, and the Herald from causes with which we are not acquainted. In 1849, however, Captain Kellett in the Herald, after examining Wainwright's Inlet, despatched Lieutenant Pullen to the Mackenzie River, and on standing along the margin of the ice, he discovered a group of islands on the coast of Asia, in lat. 71° 20′ N., and 175° 16' W., with extensive and very high lands to the north of them. Captain Moore in the Plover failed in all his attempts to penetrate to the eastward, and was obliged to winter in Norton

Sound. Captain Pullen, with Mr. Hooper as mate, and twelve men, performed the coasting voyage to the Mackenzie River in two 27 foot whale boats. He was conducted past Point Barrow by the pinnace of the Hecla, and the Royal Steam Yacht Club schooner, the Nancy Dawson, owned and commanded by Mr. Shedden, a mate of the Royal Navy. This adventurous and generous individual came to prosecute the search for Sir John Franklin at his own expense, and though far gone with consumption, he gave most efficient assistance to Captain Pullen. He was anxious to have left provisions at Refuge Inlet, where he had waited a month for this purpose; but he could not do it without the knowledge of the natives. He succeeded, however, in depositing a large cask of flour and one of preserved meats on another small inlet at lat. 71° 7'. His kindness to the crew in the boats was most generous, supplying them with everything which his vessel could afford, and following them with considerable risk. About two months afterwards, he reached Mazatlan, where he fell a victim to his great exertions in the cause of humanity. It is an important result of this adventurous voyage in open boats from Wainwright's Inlet to the Mackenzie River, that no traces of the missing Expedition were found between these two points of the American coast; and that the Esquimaux, with whom Captain Pullen communicated, had neither seen the ships nor their crew.*

But though the Expedition to Behring's Straits failed to effect the object it had in view, its labours have been far from fruitless. On the 15th August 1849, Captain Kellett had attained the longitude of 170° 10′ W., and on the 16th he discovered an almost inacessible island of granite rising 1400 feet above the sea, with a range of high land behind it which was seen by every one of the crew. They were anxious to hoist the union jack upon the island, but constant snow-storms compelled them to leave it and clear the ice-pack. Captain Moore, whose track lay farther eastward, saw elevated peaks to the north of him, and Baron Von Wrangell had before observed high land from Yakan. Combining these facts, Captain W. H. Smyth, the distinguished President of the Royal Geographical Society,† is of opinion that this land is that called Tikigen, inhabited by a race called Kraihai, with a coast line trending nearly parallel to that of Northern Siberia, which was discovered in 1762 by Serjeant Andreyev, in his Expedition of discovery to the Icy Sea; and he therefore considers it "far from improbable that a continuous

* The testimony of the natives cannot be trusted. Captain Kellett says that the coast" is alive" with stories concerning the missing crews, and that "the Esquimaux are ever ready to exercise their ingenuity by inventing a story."

+ Address at the anniversary meeting 21st May 1850.-Pp. 29, 30.

Sir John Richardson and Mr. Rae's Expedition in 1848. 469

coast line may extend from the vicinity of New Siberia in the west to the vicinity of Bank's Land in the east." "In the event," he continues, "of such an hypothesis proving correct, it will be obvious that should Franklin have succeeded in penetrating through, and to the west of, Wellington Channel, the interposition of this track would preclude all possibility of his bringing his ships again so far south as to reach Behring's Straits, unless the course were greatly prolonged westwards, or the Wellington Channel again traversed."

The Expeditions under Sir John Richardson and Mr. Rae have also returned without any intelligence respecting the missing vessels, though with much interesting information respecting the regions they visited. As Sir John's course lay through a country which he had previously travelled over and described, he was naturally led to make the personal narrative as brief as possible. After descending the Mackenzie River, they entered its estuary on the third August 1848, and sailing along the coast they reached Cape Krusenstern on the 29th of August. Passing Basil Hall's Bay on the 31st, they reached Cape Hearne. In poling them along and dragging them over the floes of ice, the boats were much shattered, and finding that they could not advance further in the present condition of the ice, without pulling the boats to pieces, and running the risk of losing all their stores and provision, they encamped about eight miles from Cape Kendall which bore south-west. Upon viewing the sea from the high ground, and ascertaining that no traces of open water were visible in any direction, Sir John, after consulting with Mr. Rae, resolved to leave the boats at this place, though still at some distance from the Copper Mine River, and commence their overland march. On the 1st and 2d September they were occupied in preparing the packages for the march, consisting of thirteen days' provision of pemmican, and all their necessary implements and objects of natural history. These loads were divided among the men, Mr. Rae voluntarily resolving to transport a package nearly equal to the men's in weight, while Sir John distrusting his own powers of march, restricted himself to a fowling-piece, ammunition, a few books, and other things thrust into his pocket.

Having read prayers, they set out on Sunday the 3d September, and after encountering snow-storms and dense fogs, and marching in frozen clothes, wetted in crossing the streams, they reached their winter quarters in Fort Confidence on the 15th September. On the 17th, being Sunday, Sir John read prayers to a congregation of forty-two persons, and returned thanks to the Almighty for their safe return. The long winter at Fort Confidence was spent in great comfort, and being almost