figuration of the earth. Lyons proceeded in 1824, with the intention of examining Melville's Peninsula and going thence, if possible, to Franklin's Point Turnagain, on the American coast. But the expedition was so shaken about and distressed, that it was forced to return.

In the spring of 1824 Parry with the ships Hecla and Fury, made his third Northern voyage. He went into Barrow's Straits and wintered at Port Bowen, on Regent's Inlet. Next year he proceeded westward and examined the coast of North Somerset. Here, on the eastern shore of the Inlet, he was forced to leave the Fury and return home.

In 1826 Capt. Franklin went down the river Mackenzie and explored the coast to the westward, 374 miles. His party returned to England in October 1827. In 1826 Capt. Beechy sailed into the Pacific and entered Behring's Straits. But he made no eastward progress.

Parry undertook his fourth voyage in 827. He went to Spitzbergen and leaving his ship proceeded with sledges, overland, towards the pole, which is about 600 miles from Hakluyt's Headland. But the attempt was fruitless. While he and his men were creeping up on boats and sledges, to between 82° and 83° beyond which none have ventured, the ice they were on was moving slowly to the South and their severe labor was all thrown away.

In 129, Captain John Ross, who had suffered a good deal in reputation from the treacherous Croker Mountains, resolved to make another effort. As government would not encourage him, he was indebted for his outfit to Mr. Felix Booth, a London distiller, and subsequently a knight and lord mayor, who, in return for his liberality, has received an Arctic immortality-an enduring monument in icebergs

in those regions bearing the names Boothia, Felix, Lord Mayor, as the reader may see on glancing at the map. Indeed, he should do more than glance at it; for without it, any disquisition on the Northern discoveries will make but a confused impression on his memory. Captain Ross went into Barrow's Straits, and entered Regent's Inlet. Ile visited the land on the west coast, and called it Boothia. He wintered there, and, in 1831, his nephew, James C. Ross, planted the English flag on the magnetic pole, in latitude 70° 177 north, and 96° 46′ 44" west longitude, where the dip of the needle was nearly vertical. In April, 1832, finding his ship, the Victory, could not be extricated from the ice, Ross left it, and journeyed to the Fury Beach for boats that were lying there. With these, after vast labor, he

tried to get out of Regent's Inlet; but he was obliged to give up the attempt, and retrace his steps to the wreck of the Fury. where he passed his fourth winter of 1832-3. In August, 1833, he made one more vigorous effort to get out, and, having passed in the boats through Barrow's Straits, he and his men were happily picked up, in Lancaster Sound, by the whaler, Isabella, the captain's old ship of discovery. The people of England believed Ross and his crew had perished, and, in the midst of their doubts and regrets, the nation was surprised and rejoiced by the news of his rescue. He has retrieved every thing, and the Croker Mountains were no longer remembered to his prejudice.

In 1833, Captain Back made a journey from the Hudson's Bay station to the Polar Sea. He went eastward beyond Franklin's Point, Turnagain, and traced the coast in the direction of Repulse Bay. a point within Hudson's waters. He returned in 1835, and sailed in 1836 up through Hudson's Straits, to try the chance of finding a way across the interval lying between his late land exploration on the west, and the bottom of Regent's Inlet. But the voyage was unsatisfactory. In 1836, Dease and Simpson went from a fort of the Hudson's Bay Company along the Mackenzie to the Arctic coasts, and examined the latter; but with no remarkable result. In 1845, other expeditions were set on foot. One was that of Dr. John Rae, who proceeded from Fort Churchhill, on Hudson's Bay, in July. 1846, and, travelling arduously northward with boats and sledges, discovered Boothia to be a peninsula. The other expedition was that of Sir John Franklin.

From the foregoing, it will be perceived that, after the first voyage of Parry, all other progress was, so to speak, carried on within and below his extreme delineations. No one had ventured beyond Cape Walker in the direction of Banks' Land, to the west and south of North Somerset, or gone beyond Parry's Islands to the northwest, or to the north, through Wellington Channel. Neither had any attempt been made from Baffin's Bay, above Lancaster Sound, to enter those remote waters said to flow round the pole. And, indeed, it was no wonder that the explorers preferred the more known and southerly latitudes of Repulse Bay, Boothia, Coronation Gulf, and Victoria Land, to the remoter solitudes of the more northern ways; while, at the same time, the narrowed space between the extreme of continental exploration from the west, and the coasts of Regent's Inlet and Hudson's Bay, very

naturally led men to look for the passage in that direction.

Sir John Franklin was born at Spilsby, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1786. Не entered the English navy in 1800 as midshipman. He served in the Polyphemus, and, as a middy on board, witnessed the battle of the Baltic before Copenhagen, where Nelson paid back the old Corsair compliments of Regnar Lodbrok. Young Franklin went afterwards with Captain Flinders on a voyage of discovery to the coasts of New Holland, and was ship wrecked on a coral reef in August, 1803. Sir John was early inured to those perils and privations which attended his course in life. He was signal-midshipman on board the Bellerophon in the sea-fight of Trafalgar in 1805, reading through the smoke the signs of battle as they flew from mast to mast. In 1808, Lieutenant Franklin escorted the expatriated Braganzas-flying before Junot and the other French generals-from the Tagus to the Rio Janeiro. Again, in 1814, he was with Packenham at New Orleans, trying to get at Jackson behind the immortal mudparapets and sand-bags (no cotton packs among them-we have Andrew's word for it), and was wounded in the boat service while behaving spiritedly and well. In 1818, he commanded the Trent, and accompanied Buchan to the north. Next year he made that terrible overland journey to which we have briefly alluded. In 1825, he made another overland expedition towards the Polar Sea, leaving England in great depression of mind in consequence of his first wife's illness. This lady, daughter of Mr. Porden, architect, of London, died in less than a week after he had left England, carrying with him the flag she had given him to hoist on reaching the Polar Sea. He was obliged, by the imperfect success of the expedition, to hoist it on Garry's Island, at the mouth of the Mackenzie River. He has left narratives of these two overland expeditions. In 1827, he was presented by the Geographical Society of Paris with a gold medal worth $250. In 1828, he married Jane, daughter of John Griffin, Esq., of London, and in 1829, Captain Franklin was knighted by George IV. He was actively employed in the Mediterranean during the war of Greek Independence, and received ffor his services the order of the Redeemer of Greece. Sir John, if now alive, is in his 67th year.

Franklin left England on the 26th May, 1845, with the Erebus and Terror-two ominously-named ships, which had been originally built for purposes of bombardment, and had only just returned from the Antarctic exploration under Sir James C.

men.

Ross. Sir John was accompanied by Captain Fitzjames and Captain Crozier, and the squadron had a complement of 138 He was spoken by the whaler Enterprise, Captain Martin, in Baffin's Bay, on the 20th of July, and his ships were last seen on the 26th (fastened to an iceberg in Melville Bay) by Captain Dannett, of the whaler Prince of Wales. Franklin had-he himself stated-five years' provisions on board, and told Martin he could make them last seven years, if necessary, with the help of the game which he was sure of procuring.

When 1847 had passed away without tidings from the absent voyagers, some anxiety began to be felt. After a time

Sir John Ross expressed his belief the expedition was frozen up to the southwest of Melville's Island. Sir Francis Beaufort, Sir W. E. Parry, Captain Beechy, Captain Sir John Richardson, and Captain Sir James C. Ross, were nearly of the same opinion, and thought that Franklin, if obliged to quit his ship, would try to make his way, by an unknown interval, to the Mackenzie or Coppermine, on the continent. Dr. McCormack and Captain Penny spoke of Wellington Channel and Jones's Sound; but the former authorities greatly relied, in forming their conclusions, on the orders of the Admiralty, which a British officer is strictly bound to respect. These orders were, that Sir John should endeavor, in the first instance, to proceed towards Behring's Straits, in a southwesterly direction from Cape Walker, and the alternative, in case the way should be closed, was an attempt through the opening of Wellington Channel. In the spring of 1848, Sir James C. Ross was sent with the Enterprise and Investigator to Lancaster Sound. He found a barrier across Wellington Channel, and a vast quantity of ice in Barrow's Straits. He wintered in the harbor of Port Leopold, where the Straits, Regent's Inlet, Wellington Channel, and the Western opening made a cross or sort of northern Quatre Bras. The winter was passed in southerly explorings. With Lieutenant McClintock, Sir James explored the west coast of North Somerset, and Lieutenant Robinson examined the western shore of Regent's Inlet beyond Fury Beach. Before quitting his quarters, Sir James built a house at Port Leopold, leaving there fuel and provisions for twelve months. He then made his way into Lancaster Sound, and, on the 5th of November, 1849, reported himself at the Admiralty, having missed the North Star which had been sent out to him with instructions to attempt the passage through Wellington Channel.

In 1848, Sir John Richardson again pro

ceeded from the Hudson Bay stations to the Arctic Sea, and explored the coast between the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine, and also part of Wollaston's Land, in the hope of finding some trace of the missing expedition; but in vain. In the same year the Plover, Captain Moore, and the Herald, Captain Kellett, went up through Behring's Straits with the purpose of intercepting Franklin's party should it have passed through the archipelago southwest of Cape Walker. On this station the Plover has remained, co-operating with other ships, and sending out exploring parties occasionally. In 1850, Lieut. Pullen of the Plover journeyed to the mouth of the Mackenzie, and so eastward to Point Bathurst, whence he attempted to go to Banks' Land-that unvisited land seen from the coasts of Parry's Islands. But he failed; and in 1851 he returned to the Mackenzie River.

The North Star, sent out in 1849 with instructions for Sir James C. Ross, wintered in Wolstenholme Sound, in Baffin's Bay, and returned to Spithead in September, 1850, after having seen in Lancaster Sound the large squadron sent in that year to look for the lost expedition. The movements of this squadron must be fresh in the minds of most of our readers. Captain Austin's ships, the Resolute and Assistance, with their tenders, went from England in May, 1850. In the same month, Mr. Grinnell's ships, the Advance and Rescue, under De Haven and Griffin, proceeded to the north. Captain Penny carried up his two ships, the Lady Frankiin and the Sophia; the veteran, Sir John Ross, went in the Felix, and Captain Forsyth in the Prince Albert. In August, all these ships were in Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Straits, or the adjoining waters. On the 13th of that month, Captain Ommaney-Austin's second in commandand Sir John Ross heard from Eskimos in Barrow's Straits that two ships were crushed off Cape Dudley Diggs, and the crews afterwards killed-in the winter of 1846-by the natives. But this report was owing to a misconception of the Eskimo language. On the 23d of August, Captain Ommaney, and, a few days later, Captain Penny, found traces of the missing squadron on Point Riley and Beechy Island, at the opening of Wellington Channel. These were a small guide-board attached to a boarding-pike eight feet long, and bearing an index pointing the way to the ships, a wooden anvil block, some remnants of rope and clothes, several hundred empty meat-cannisters, and, above all, the graves of three men of the squadron: John Hartnell, and William Baine, of the Erebus, and John Torrington, of the Terror.

Three headstones, with inscriptions, marked these graves, and the dates were from January to April, 1846. Captain Austin's ships wintered southwest of Cornwallis Island. Several officers on foot rounded the west end of Melville Island, in longitude 114° west, and saw land beyond the 116th meridian. The intermediate bays and passages were also explored. On the south of Barrow's Straits Captain Ommaney, Lieutenant Osborne, Meecham, and Browne-at a season when the cold was 70° below zero, and spirits froze in bottles -traced Cape Walker and the adjoining straits to within 180 miles of Victoria Land.

Captain Penny's ships explored part of Wellington Channel. He saw three blue openings to the west from that channelthe north and east being closed with ice. He perceived a strong current running from the westward, and it was his opinion, and that of all who accompanied him, that the prevailing winds were from the northwest. He attempted to send a party in that direction, under Mr. Stuart, but it was stopped by the water, which could be seen stretching on to the horizon. Penny asserts there is a great amount of animal life in this region-four-footed, feathery, and finny-walruses, seals, whales, bears, hares, foxes, wolves, reindeer herds, flocks of king and eider ducks, brent, geese, gulls, and other water-fowl. It should be observed that the walrus can exist but where there is open water, in which it may rise for air.

Captain Forsyth, in the Prince Albert, made a rapid run to the Arctic circle and back to England in the space of four months. He went through Lancaster Sound, and on to the Fury Beach, in Regent's Inlet. Finding great obstructions to any further progress westwardly, he went up Wellington Channel, and, returning quickly, brought home the news of the relics on Beechy Island. By this time the chief points in Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Straits had been examined, and also the farther end of Melville Island beyond Cape Walker, without revealing any traces of Sir John Franklin and his crews.

The American ships, so generously missioned by Mr. Grinnell on this fraternal errand, were caught in the ice in Lancaster Sound, borne up Wellington Channel, then back again, and out through Lancaster Sound into Baffin's Bay-a drift of 1060 miles during 267 days! Having at last extricated his ships, De Haven again proceeded to confront the deadly difficulties of the search, but was checked by the ice, and obliged reluctantly to return to NewYork in October, 1851.

While all these ships were exploring

the Arctic labyrinth on the east, the Enterprise and Investigator, commanded by Captains Collinson and McClure, were endeavoring to make their way from the west. They reached Behring's Straits in 1850, with the purpose of trying to approach Melville Island. They have not yet been able to carry out that object. Along with the Plover, they were still, when last heard from, laboring and lingering amidst these Arctic wildernesses they have already spent so much time in exploring, in the still deferred hope of meeting with the missing mariners.

After the return of the eastern squadron of 1850, public opinion underwent a change in respect of the unknown movements of Sir John Franklin; and it was believed, as it still is, that he must have gone up to the northwest, through Wellington Channel. He spent the winter of 1845-6-as we now know-on Beechy Island, and also the succeeding summer, as has been concluded from the deep ruts left in the ground by sledges, and from small patches of garden ground, bordered with purple saxifrages and planted with native plants. Much astonishment has been expressed that Franklin did not bury some record of his movements and intentions, and indicate where they may be looked for. Sir John Richardson, to account for this, says that, instead of burying one of those copper cylinders with which he was provided, Franklin, knowing there was no resort of natives to that place, would hang it conspicuously on a tree or a post, the sooner to meet the eyes of explorers. But Richardson says this would not preserve it, for bears and wolverines climb trees and posts, and tear down any packages that may be attached to them. A dépôt, carefully formed by Lieutenant Griffith, on Griffith Island, was entirely eaten by the bearsthe tin cases proving a poor defence against their tusks. They also overthrew a signpost, and bit off the end of the metal cylinder containing the record. Richardson, therefore, thinks that Sir John Franklin might have left a cylinder containing notices attached to the sign-post which Penny found flat on the ground, or to some other object, and that the bears or wolverines might have pulled down and destroyed it.

Be this as it may, the search for Sir John Franklin has not ceased. In 1851, Dr. Rae was again sent from the Great Bear Lake towards the sea, for the exploration of the coast and the shore of Wollaston Land. In the same year, Lady Franklin-more steadily hopeful than the Ithacan wife of old-sent the Prince Albert, Captain Kennedy again into the Arctic circle. Meeting the returning American ships, Kennedy

pushed on through Barrow's Straits, desiring, like Forsyth in the preceding year, to examine Regent's Inlet. But the ice was so thick he could not enter it. At Port Leopold he was separated, along with a small party, from his ship, and, drifting away on the ice, was recovered with difficulty. A floe of ice then bore the Prince Albert down the inlet, where, on the western shore, the voyagers wintered at Batty Bay. From this place Captain Kennedy and Mr. Ballot proceeded, on the 1st of April, with sledges round Melville Bay, and following Brentford Bay to the west, discovered that it was a new channel, which they believed to be the looked-for passage. Passing round, they proceeded to Cape Walker, on North Somerset, and so eastward to Port Leopold, whence, after a journey of 1200 miles in two months, they reached the ship in Batty Bay. No trace of Franklin was found; but the Prince Albert brought home last October some interesting news nevertheless. Passing up into Barrow's Straits, in August. 1852, Captain Kennedy reached Beechy Island on the 19th of that month, and there found Captain Pullen in the North Star, at Erebus Bay, who told him Sir Edward Belcher, in the Assistance, had started up Wellington Channel on the 14th, and Captain Kellett, of the Resolute. had gone westwardly to Melville Island and the south of Parry's Islands, to deposite there provisions and other necessaries for Collinson and McClure's expedition. should it reach so far from Behring's Straits. Belcher's squadron had been sent from England in the spring of last year, Sir Edward's chief instructions being to attempt the passage by Wellington Channel. In his absence, the North Star remained at Beechy Island as a dépôt.

Research seems to have taken the right track after all; and the failures of the last three years were necessary to indicate it. The world is anxiously waiting to hear the result of Sir Edward's bold voyage, favored as it has been by a season of great openness. Captain Kennedy says that the sea was open to the north of Wellington Channel when the Assistance went up, and thus restores the credit of Captain Penny (whose announcement of open water in that direction had been somewhat doubted), while it inspires a strong hope that something may now be effected. Captain Pullen, writing to the Admiralty on the 23d of August, says the voyagers had parted in high spirits, and with every hope of success. He adds, that from the summit of Beechy Island he had looked up Wellington Channel and to the westward, and had seen water with very little ice. Later accounts have been received from

Sir Edward's ship in Wellington Channel, to the effect that the expedition had seen, floating down past them, the remains of whales, bears, and other animal substances, which led them to the conclusion that animal life was plenty in that region, and to the belief that the floating objects were the remains of what had been used for human food. When Captain Kennedy spoke of these facts to Captain Penny, at Aberdeen, the latter expressed an energetic opinion that if Sir Edward Belcher's expedition were properly pushed forward, it would come out at Behring's Straits.

Sir Edward does not think that Sir John Franklin hurried away from Beechy Island. In a letter to the Admiralty of the 14th of last August, he says, that, on reaching Beechy Island, he proceeded with service parties to examine the place and the adjacent coasts for some record of the missing expedition. After a laborious search, including the lines of direction of the head-boards of the graves, and at ten feet distance, no trace, not even a scratch on the paint, could be discerned.

He

thinks Sir John had no intention of leaving a record at that place. Among the reasons occurring to him for such a belief is, that Sir John would not think it a likely place for inquiry; that he would place his beacon on Cape Riley, or some more prominent and accessible position. Lieutenant Hamilton, belonging to the expedition, speaks of some other tokens of the missing mariners, found at Caswell's Tower, on Beechy Island: "On searching, we discovered several of Goldner's preservedmeat cases, seven or eight wine bottles, a fireplace, and a small well, the bottom of which was lined with small stones. A pathway of large flat stones led to the well. No cairns or documents were found. These articles evidently belonged to some of Franklin's parties-most probably a shooting party.

Last year the Isabel, screw steamer, Captain Inglefield, partly fitted out by Lady Franklin, went to the head of Baffin's Bay, and entered Whale Sound on the eastern side. By this inlet the captain believed he had entered the Great Polar Basin, when the violence of the gales checked his progress, and compelled him to return. He then crossed over to the western side of the bay, and entered Jones's Sound as far as the 84th degree of longitude, and then returned. After visiting Belcher's squadron at Beechy Island, he came to England towards the close of the year.

We perceive that the Isabel has resumed her search this year, under the orders of Captain Kennedy, who will proceed to Behring's Straits to aid or look for

the expedition of Captains Collinson and McClure. The latter have been near five years in those dreary labyrinths waiting on the shifting chances of that treacherous region, and expecting those who never come. Indeed, it is not impossible that, at this moment, the Enterprise and Investigator are in the predicament of the Erebus and Terror-in want of the succor which they went so far to convey!

America, also, sends out one more expedition in search of the missing ships. Dr. E. R. Kane, in the Advance, goes up to the Arctic circle. He proposes to make the starting-point of his search Smith's Sound, or some convenient station in the head waters of Baffin's Bay-over two hundred miles further to the north than Beechy Island. Thence, accompanied by a small party with a couple of sledges drawn by dogs, he will undertake an overland pilgrimage westward, in the direction of the Polar Basin. He expects the co-operation of the Danish authorities in removing any difficulties of the preparatory arrangements, and procuring the assistance of such Eskimos as he may need. Each sledge will carry an Indiarubber boat on a basket of wicker-work. The doctor has carefully superintended the pemmican, the biscuit, the condensed milk, and dessicated vegetables, and all those gastronomic resources on which the intrepid little party must mainly rely. Hoping to reach the starting-place in the early season of navigation, he intends to follow his course of travel nearly upon a meridional line, which would, it is believed, lead him to the Polynya—a mare liberum, or such, comparatively speaking-within its formidable borderings of the thick-ribbed ice. Mr. Grinnell has again generously given his good ship, the Advance, fully equipped, for this chivalrous charity; and the doctor has had his enterprise encouraged by autograph letters from the venerable Baron Humboldt, the Nestor of science and philosophy, Sir Francis Beaufort, Colonel Sabine, Captains Parry, Ross, and other distinguished men.

Meantime the expedition under Sir Edward Belcher, now following the track which the world believes Franklin took, gives, we repeat, good hope of arriving at something more concerning the missing ships. But the hope that Sir John Franklin is still alive is not so strongly entertained as heretofore. Between seven and eight years is a long time to spend within the dreary Arctic circle. Sir John Ross has given it as his opinion that even if Franklin's expedition had been able to procure food enough, they could scarcely survive six winters in the Arctic regions. Capt. Ommaney thinks Sir John and his