Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/711

 ARCTIC DISCOVERY 675 well as Capt. Penny, also examined the entire ground very minutely. Singularly, not all this searching brought to light any document which could give the slightest trace of the future in- tentions of the party. The government ships wintered but little distance trom each other ; and the spring of 1851 was devoted to land expeditions, in which the shores of Wellington channel, the coast of Banks land, and the waters leading from Barrow strait to Melville island, were to be thoroughly explored. The various parties made a thorough search on their different routes, and explored 675 m. of hitherto undiscovered coast, but found no trace of the lost. Lieut. McClintock's party reached on this occasion the furthest western limit ever attained by arctic explorers starting from Baf- fin bay, a point in Ion. 114 20' W. and lat. 74 38'. From the tameness of animals found here- about it would seem that few if any human beings had ever touched this point before. Dr. Kane's opinion, on examining the sledge tracks about Cape Riley, was that Sir John Franklin had passed to the north, with his ships, on the breaking up of the ice in 1846 ; had gone through Wellington channel into the supposed great polar basin, and had never re- turned. The American expedition, which had gallantly led the way wherever they could go, and whose commander earned for himself at the hands of the English the sobriquet of " the mad Yankee," after undergoing much suffering and considerable danger, arrived in New York, the Advance on Sept. 30, and the Rescue on Oct. 3, 1851. On June 3, 1851, the Prince Albert, which had brought to England news of the discovery at Beechey island, was de- spatched by Lady Franklin on another expedi- tion to explore the shores of Prince Regent inlet. She returned in October, 1853. The conclusion drawn from the failure of all the expeditions, including Dr. Rae's of 1851, which was very thorough, was that Franklin had never reached so far south as the American mainland, or the peninsulas connected with it. Sir John Ross had brought back a report that the Franklin party had been murdered hi Wostenholm sound by the Esquimaux. To es- tablish the truth or falsity of this rumor, Lady Franklin sent the Isabel screw steamer, Com- mander Inglefield, to explore this sound. He left England in July, 1852 ; examined Wosten- holm sound, finding no traces of the missing ones ; sailed up Smith sound to lat. 78 28' 21", 140 m. further than previous navigators had reached ; found, as he thought, a more genial climate than existed to the south ; and estab- lished in this voyage the presence of a strait or channel connecting Baffin bay with the great polar basin. Meantime, following the Welling ton channel theory, Sir Edward Belcher was sent out in April, 1852, in command of five ves- sels, the Assistance, Resolute, North Star, Pio- neer, and Intrepid the last two steamers. The North Star was to be the depot and store ship ; the Resolute and Intrepid were to steer west, to the assistance of Collinson and Mc- Clure ; and the Assistance and Pioneer were to push up Wellington channel. In the spring of 1853 more expeditions were sent out. The chief of these was that fitted out by Mr. Grin- nell of New York, Mr. Peabody of London, and others, and commanded by Dr. E. K. Kane, who had acted as surgeon, naturalist, and his- torian of the former Grinnell expedition, under De Haven. Lady Franklin sent out the Rat- tlesnake and Isabel, steamer, for Behring strait, to assist Collinson and McClure. Dr. Rae was despatched for another exploration of Boothia. And finally, the Lady Franklin and Phoenix, Capt. Inglefield, were sent to Barrow strait, to aid Sir Edward Belcher. With Inglefield on this expedition was Bellot, a gallant young Frenchman, who was lost Aug. 18, 1853, by being blown off" some floating ice. The west- ward expedition of Belcher made a number of explorations in the general direction of their line of search, toward Melville island. They found no traces of Franklin, but fortunately succeeded in finding and rescuing McClure and his ship's company, who had been buried in the arctic ice since the summer of 1850, three years. These returned home with Belcher, abandoning their ship, and are thus the first and only ship's company who ever entered Behring strait and returned to Europe by Baf- fin bay. Thus was established, at last, the great fact that there is a continuous passage by water from Baffin bay to Behring strait, parallel with the coast of the American conti- nent. McClure reached in his ship in 1850 a point within 60 m. of the western terminus of Barrow strait, and thus had nearly passed through with his vessel. The crews under Belcher's command had meantime made exten- sive explorations by land during the spring and autumn of 1853, and the spring of 1854. The Assistance and Pioneer penetrated up Welling- ton channel to lat. 78 10', making various dis- coveries of new land and islands. When the vessels were brought to by ice, the officers set out on sledges, and penetrated overland to a point which Belcher considered an opening into Jones sound from the east. Here, to their surprise, as early as May 20, all sledging operations were stopped by open water. They found at various points structures of ice too well built to be the work of natives, but nowhere the slightest tan- gible trace of Sir John Franklin. In the spring of 1854 the vessels composing the expedition, the Assistance, Resolute, Pioneer, Intrepid, and McClure's ship, the Investigator, were abandoned, their crews taken on board the North Star, Phoenix, and Talbot, and the entire party arrived in England in September, 1854. It must be mentioned here that McClure, in Au- gust, 1850, discovered hi the ear of an Esqui- maux chief, near the mouth of Mackenzie river, a flat brass button. On being asked where he obtained this, the chief made answer that it had been taken from the ear of a white man who had been killed by one of his tribe. The white