Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/712

 GT6 man belonged to a party which had landed at Point Warren, near the mouth of the Macken- zie, and there built a house. Nobody knew how they came, as they had no boat ; bat they went inland. The man killed had strayed from the party, and he (the chief) and his son had buried him on a hill at a little distance. When or the exact spot where this occurred could not be ascertained. Neither the grave nor the house was found. Collinson, McClure's com- panion on the Behring strait expedition, eventually returned to England by the way he came. He made numerous discoveries of land, and explorations in the neighborhood of Banks land, Wollaston land, Albert land, and Victo- ria land. At Cambridge bay in Prince Albert sound, in about lat. 70 and Ion. 117, where his vessel passed the winter of 1852-'8, he saw in the possession of the Esquimaux a piece of iron and fragments of a hatch frame or door- way. These he thought must have belonged to Franklin's ships; but he was unable to ob- tain any intelligence in regard to the manner in which the Esquimaux came into possession of them. There remained now Dr. Rae's expe- dition to Boothia, and Dr. Kane's American expedition, to hear from. Dr. Rae reached Pelly bay, on the S. W. side of the gulf of Boothia, N. W. of Committee bay, in April, 1854. Here he met Esquimaux who had in their possession various articles of silverware, &c., belonging to officers of both the Erebus and Terror. The intelligence obtained by him of the natives may be summed up as follows : In the spring of 1850 some Esquimaux killing seals near the N. shore of a large island known as King Wil- liam land (some distance westward of Pelly bay), saw a party of about 40 white men pass to the southward, along the W. shore of this island. They were dragging a boat and sledges with them. They could not speak Esquimaux, but the natives gathered that their ships had been crushed, and they were now going where they could find deer to shoot. They purchased a little provision from the natives, who judged that they were nearly destitute of food. The officer" with them was described as a tall, stout, middle-aged man. At a later date, the same season, but previous to the disruption of the ice, the corpses of some 30 persons, and some graves, were discovered on the continent, and five dead bodies on an island near it, about a long day's journey N. W. of the mouth of a large river supposed to be Back river. Of the bodies on the island, one was supposed to be a chief, as he had a telescope slung about his neck. These men, from all appearances, had been driven to cannibalism before they perished. From the fact that shots were heard, and the feathers of wild fowl were found near the bodies, it is conjectured that a few of the men survived till May, 1851. They seem to have had an abundance of ammunition. There were also numbers of telescopes, guns, watches, &c., pieces of which articles were found among the natives by Dr. Rae, in considerable quantities. Dr. Rae's opinion was that the party died by starvation, and not by the hands of the natives. Mr. James Anderson was sent out in 1855, to ex- plore more perfectly the spot designated as the scene of so much suffering. On June 30, a little way from the mouth of Back river, he came upon some Esquimaux, who had with them numerous articles belonging to a boat equipage. The natives stated that the owners of these articles had died of starvation. On reaching Montreal island, where the five men had perish- ed, according to report, Mr. Anderson found chain hooks, tools, rope, bunting, and a num- ber of sticks strung together, on one of which was carved the name of Mr. Stanley, surgeon of the Erebus. On a plank was found the word " Terror." Not a vestige of the remains, nor any paper, was found. At Point Ogle some small articles were also found, but no bodies. The party were unable to reach King William land, the scene of the chief disaster. Dr. Kane, the American explorer, sailed in the Ad- vance from New York, May 30, 1853. The discoveries of Inglefield in Smith strait, and those of Belcher at the head of Wellington channel, had convinced him that there was somewhere between lat. 80 N. and the north pole a vast open sea, and a milder climate than was found some degrees to the south ; and further, that in this sea were to be sought, and he hoped found, tidings of Sir John Franklin's long absent expedition. His determination was therefore to penetrate as far up Smith strait as possible, in the hope of being able to enter the polar sea, and there have clear water for his explorations. He entered the ice Aug. 2, and on the 20th found shelter from a hurricane un- der lee of a rocky island, which he named God- send ledge. Leaving his men, on the subsidence of the gale, to tow the vessel along the ice, Dr. Kane, Aug. 29, passed ahead with a boating party to explore the coast. He thus passed numerous points of land, and reached Cape George Russell, whence he saw the great glacier of Humboldt, with Cape Jackson on one side, Cape Barrow on the other, and a sea of solid ice between. Not finding on this trip a good place for winter quarters, he returned, and the Advance was moored for the winter in Van Rensselaer harbor, in lat. 78 37' and Ion. 70 40'. During the continuance of daylight in the autumn excursions were made into the interior of Greenland, in which over 800 m. were trav- ersed, and the coast was traced for 125 m. to the north and east. Kane's winter harbor was further north than that of any previous expe- dition. The crew were much enfeebled by the long winter, and it was not till April that Kane started on his chief sledging tour to the north. Owing to the severity of the climate and great obstacles, the expedition failed in its main ob- ject ; but they discovered on this trip some re- markable natural features : the Three Brother Turrets, Tennyson's Monument, and the great glacier of Humboldt. They returned to the vessels May 14. Dr. Hayes and William God-