Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 60.djvu/557

 son in 1848 in search for Sir J. Franklin, during which the whole coast was explored that lay between the mouths of the Mackenzie and the Coppermine Rivers. (3) In 1851, at the roquest of Covernmcnt, he explored and mapped, with the slcnderest outfit, 700 miles of the south coast of Wollaston Land and Victoria Land, still in search of Sir J. Frauklin, for which achicvement he reccived the gold medal of the Geographical Society. Its result was greatly to arrow the range of possibilities as to the locality of the missing expedition. (4) Не took clrge of a boat expcdition, proved the insular character of King Wiliam's Land, and came at last upon relics of Franklin's party and received verbal information from the Eskimo that gave the first definite information as to their fate. The disaster oceurred at the mouth of the Back River, a little more than 200 miles in a direct line fron the place where he heard of it. For this achievement he received the promised grant of £10,000 from Government. He did not visit the spot himself, but his information as to the sitc and the completcness of the disaster, was soon abundantly confirmed. After this hc made some further travel of interest, though by no neans of the importance of the above, surveying a routc for a telegraph line across Iceland and in North America

This bald statement of itineraries wll give but a poor idea, exccjpt to Aretie trave!lers, of the sverity of the work acconplished. Tu supply the defieiency, the follcowing quotation is given from the address of Sir R. Murchison when preseuting the Cold Medal to Dr. Rae; is remarks chiefly refcrring to the journcys numbered above as (1) and (3)

With a boldness never surpassed, hc (Dr. Rac) determined on wintering on the proverbially desolate shores of Repulsc Bay, where, or in the immediatc neighbourhood, oe expedition of two ships had previously wholly perished, and two others were al but lost. There he maintained his party on decr shot principally by himself, and spent ten months of an Arctic winter in a hut of stoues, the locality uot even yielding drift timber. With no other fuel than a kind of hay made of the Andromeda tetrugona, he preserved his men in lhcalth, and thus enabled them to cxecute their arduous surveying journeys of upwards of 1,000 miles round Committce Bay (the southern portion of Boothia Gulf) in the spring. Next season he brouglht his party back to the Hudson Bay posts in better working condition than wher he set out, and with but a small diminutiou of the few bags of pro- visions he had taken with him.

On his last journeys, in which he travelled morc than 3,000 miles in snow-shoes, Dr. Rae has shown cqual judgment and perseverance Dreading, from his former experience, that the sea might be frozen, he deteried on a spring journey over the ice, and performed a most cxtraordinary one. His last starting place at Fort Confidence on the