Dispute between Captain Austin and Captain Penny. 483

On the 11th August Captain Austin's ships were relieved from their winter-quarters, and on the 12th unexpectedly reached those of Captain Penny. Having considered the directions and extent of their search, Captain Austin came to the conclusion that Sir John Franklin had not gone to the southward or westward of Wellington Channel; and having received Captain Penny's written opinion, of date 11th August, that Wellington Channel required no further search, as everything had been done which the power of man could accomplish, he resolved to abandon all farther search in these directions, and to return to England, where he arrived on the 1st of October

1851.

Notwithstanding the great harmony which seems to have subsisted among the numerous officers who were entrusted with the charge of the searching Expeditions, an unfortunate dispute has arisen between Captain Penny and Captain Austin respecting the exploration of Wellington Channel. In a letter to the Secre tary to the Admiralty, dated September 15th, 1851, Captain Penny states, that having discovered open water leading out of Wellington Channel, he requested Captain Austin to give him the Sophia steamer to go up the channel, and wait to see if the ice would clear away, and that Captain Austin declined the request. Captain Austin, on the other hand, denies that he was ever asked for a steamer, and that Captain Penny ever gave him the slightest reason to hope that either trace or rescue was to be obtained by sending a steamer up Wellington Channel. On the contrary, he produces a letter from Captain Penny in answer to a question from himself, whether Captain Penny was satisfied with his own examination of Wellington Channel? "Your question," replies Captain Penny, "is easily answered. My opinion is, Wellington Channel requires no farther search. All has been done in the power of man to accomplish, and no trace has been found. What else can be done?" With this decisive opinion from the person best fitted to give it, Captain Austin returned to England. Captain Penny, however, reconciles his letter with his previous application for a steamer, by saying, when examined by the Arctic Committee, that Wellington Channel was searched, but not beyond Wellington Channel, thus supposing that Captain Austin could understand that the continuation of Wellington Channel to the north-west was not Wellington Channel. In this letter of the 15th September, already referred to, Captain Penny had made the same distinction between the upper and the under channel, by speaking of "the strait leading north-west out of Wellington Channel, which I have for the present named Queen Victoria Channel;" but it is worthy of remark, that in a letter written three days pre

vious to the other, and addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty, he makes no such distinction, calling the upper part by the same name as the lower part. "Your Lordships are aware," he says, "that I have discovered that the course of Wellington Channel lies north-west a distance of sixty miles beyond the point which I reached." Now as he says that he asked for a steamer to go up the Channel, and as he declared that Wellington Channel required no farther search, how was it possible that Captain Austin could understand that he meant anything but the whole Channel, upper as well as lower? But, independently of this, Captain Penny admits that "there was undoubtedly a barrier of ice at the entrance of Wellington Channel at the time he applied for the steamer," and we cannot understand how, under such circumstances, Captain Austin could have been justified, either in giving a steamer, or in taking one himself, upon such a hopeless errand, and at such a late season of the year, even if he had understood Captain Penny's distinction between the upper and the under Channel. We therefore concur in the decision of the Arctic Committee, that Captain Austin acted wisely in not making any farther search in Wellington Channel.*

Those who have friends in the missing ships will be glad to hear that, beside the Expedition to Wellington Sound, now fitting out by Government, under Sir Edward Belcher and Captain Kellet, other two, and perhaps a third, from America, at the expense partly of Mr. Grinnel, are about to be employed in the same cause. In conformity with the views of Lady Franklin, at whose risk the journey is undertaken, Lieutenant Pim, R.N., has gone to St. Petersburg, for the purpose of making a land journey from the mouth of the Kolyma river to New Siberia to search for Sir John Franklin. The Russian Government, however, with whom he has been in communication, has pointed out the impracticability of the scheme; but has, at the same time, generously offered to give every assistance in any well organized plan that is likely to be attended with success. The difficulty, almost insuperable, of travelling to the place of his destination, through the immense wilderness of Northern Siberia, among uncivilised tribes, scarcely subject even to Russian authority, does not seem to have been anticipated by Lieutenant Pim or his counsellors. In Admiral Wrangel's journey through the same regions, although only one-third of the length of that proposed by Lieutenant Pim, he was obliged to employ fifty sledges and 600 dogs, with provisions for each sledge of from fifty to seventy salt herrings a day; so that the Expedition of Lieutenant Pim would require what could not be obtained with

The official inquiry into this matter occupies a great part of the Blue Book, No. 11 in our list.

Capt. Beatson's Expedition to the North of Behring's Straits. 485

out the complete ruin of the natives, who require the use of their dogs, namely, from 1200 to 1500 dogs, and provisions in proportion. The agents of the Russian Government have, at the same time, distinctly stated it as their opinion, that Sir John Franklin has not been shipwrecked in the Icy Sea, north of Siberia, otherwise some information of the event must have been conveyed to the Imperial authorities by the natives.

Another Expedition of a more plausible character, and the result of private liberality and enterprise, is at present fitting out by Captain Beatson, who has long been of opinion that Sir John Franklin has passed to the north of the Parry Islands, and that he has been prevented from getting southward by a chain of islands extending far to the westward, and probably a continuation of the Parry Islands. Captain Beatson, therefore, believes that Sir John Franklin is somewhere to the north of Behring's Straits, and certainly not far to the eastward. Influenced by this opinion, he has purchased a vessel, to be commanded by himself, and which is now preparing for the Expedition. It is a schooner of nearly 200 tons, but capable of carrying a much larger quantity. She is to be fitted up with separate engines of eight horse power each, with three separate boilers. This vessel is to be accompanied by a steam launch of five horse power. The ship is to be provisioned for five years, and her crew is to consist of fifteen men and himself. Captain Beatson had intended to take another smaller screw steamer as a tender, and of far greater power, but he has not found himself able to do this. He intends to leave England about the end of February 1852, to proceed directly to the Sandwich Islands, and having taken in coal, to enter Behring's Straits by the middle or end of July. He then makes for the open water seen by Wrangel, and should he not succeed in getting so far along the coast, he proposes to employ the spring (before the breaking up of the ice) in attempting to reach the land seen by Captain Kellet from Herald Island, and thus to perform one part of the scheme proposed by Lieutenant Pim. The Royal Geographical Society, to whom this plan was submitted, by its distinguished president, Sir Roderick Murchison, propose to raise subscriptions in aid of Captain Beatson, and we are sure that the money of the rich and the prayers of the poor will be liberally devoted to such a noble and generous enterprise.

With the copious and valuable materials now before us, we may come to some reasonable conclusion respecting the course followed by Sir John Franklin, and the probability of his being discovered, if he and his party are still alive. We believe, and it is the belief of almost all the distinguished naval officers, that Sir John Franklin did not follow a western course past Melville Island, or a south-western one by any of the inlets that lead to the

American shore. This opinion is confirmed by the extensive and unavailing search which has been made in these directions. The existence of his first winter quarters in 1845-6, at Beechy Island, at the eastern entrance to Wellington Channel, renders it highly probable that his course was along that Channel; and if it was, that he would either emerge into the polar basin, if one does exist, or would push his way westward to Behring's Straits, or eastward round Greenland, if it is an island, and does not reach the pole. The new Expedition that is now fitting out by Government, under Sir Edward Belcher and Captain Kellett, will certainly have for its main object the examination of Wellington and Queen Victoria Channels; and as it is the opinion of Captain Penny and all his officers that the missing Expedition took that route, it becomes an interesting inquiry to ascertain what is the degree of probability that it may still be discovered, and that the gallant crews of the Erebus and Terror are yet alive. If the ships have been frozen up in perpetual ice, and their crews prevented from returning from want of food, or the means of transport, there can be little doubt that travelling parties at least, from the new Expedition, may trace them either to their prisons or to their graves; but if they have escaped from the Wellington Channel into a polar basin or into other channels to the east or to the west, the Expedition will probably return without accomplishing its object, while our hopes of the safety of the missing ships will be greatly increased.

The grand problem for our solution, then, is the existence of a polar basin or of an open sea extending to the pole. Captain Ommaney has declared " that he has no faith in the theory of a polar basin," and placing against this the opposite naval opinion of Captain Osborne, that he had observed various facts which (( go far to prove the existence of a northern basin or polar sea," we enter upon the discussion of the subject as a great and scientific question which science alone is capable of solving. We have more than once had occasion to state to our readers the undoubted fact that the pole is not the coldest part of the globe, and that there are two poles of maximum cold, one in the new world, somewhere near Melville Island, and another on the opposite meridian in the old world. It is demonstrable, from the observations of Captain Scoresby and others, that the mean temperature of the North Pole does not exceed 10°* of Fahrenheit, whereas the mean temperature of Melville Island is, according to Sir Edward Parry, 1° or 2° below zero,† or 11° or 12° below that of the pole. But as the temperature of 10°, though derived from a formula expressing accurately the * See Edinburgh Transactions, vol. ix. pp. 206, 207. See this Journal, vol. iv. p. 235.

Probability of Sir John Franklin's Return.

487

diminution of temperature from the equator to the polar regions, may be considered only as a probable assumption, we shall arrive at the same conclusion by taking the results of actual observation. Captain Scoresby found, from many years' observation, that the mean temperature in latitude 78° in the Spitzbergen seas was 17° Fahrenheit, whereas Captain Parry found the mean temperature in latitude 744° at Melville Island, to be 1° or 2°-where we should have expected it to have been above 17°. If this then be the law of temperature in different meridians, Sir John Franklin, in ascending Wellington Channel, would necessarily pass into a warmer climate, where an arctic winter would lose much of its horrors, and where a more genial temperature would foster animal life, and supply him, not only with materials for food, but even with the elements of luxury. Though barriers of ice or other causes may prevent him from retracing his steps by Wellington Channel, or by any other southward course, he may be carrying on his explorations in new regions contiguous to the place of his entrance into the polar sea, or even extending them, if his vessels are preserved, into new regions far to the east or west of the meridian in which he entered it.

Such are the hopes which we fondly cherish, that our distinguished exile and his gallant crew are still preserved to their friends and their country. Yet it is but a hope-a faint hope, too, to which we cling with failing grasp, and with bitter tears. Time has worn it to a shadow-evanescent to the eye of Reason, yet looming brightly on the horizon of Fancy. Still we must not despair. When Hope quits the earth, she often alights again embalmed and invigorated amid the prayers of the faithful. In the chronicles of the ocean, when the wrecked mariner has been cast among its raging billows, an unseen hand has often. guided him to a happy shore; and in the annals of mortal suffering, when hearts have sunk and hands have failed, a meteor ray has often flashed upon the soul, and an arm of strength been commissioned to deliver. In asking, then, with the poet,-where are the friends whom we mourn? Let us accept of the consolation which he offers, when it shall appear that God has not aided the efforts of the resolute :

"Where is he?-where? silence and darkness dwell

About him; as a soul cut off from men: