258 THE FIRST FRANKLIN EXPEDITION 



and they tended the sufferers carefully until all were strong enough 

 to return to the English settlement. And in this way was accom- 

 plished a journey of 5,500 miles; mostly over a bleak and barren 

 country and under an inclement sky, with terrible cost of physical 

 and mental suffering and with much loss of life, but with results 

 which greatly enlarged the boundaries of geographical knowledge. 



In a second land expedition, made in conjunction with Parry's 

 voyage of 1824, Franklin discarded the Mackenzie and traced the 

 coast line through 37 degrees of longitude to near the one hundred 

 and fiftieth meridian. The English government, appreciating the 

 services of one who, through great danger and suffering, had car- 

 ried these expeditions over nine thousand miles, and added to the 

 charts twelve hundred miles of the northern coast line, knighted 

 him in 1829. He also received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from 

 the University of Oxford, was awarded the great gold medal from 

 the French Geographical Society, and was elected a member of 

 the Academy of Sciences, Paris. 



As governor of Tasmania, 1836-43, he accomplished much for 

 the advancement of the colony, among other benefits founding the 

 Royal Society of Tasmania at Hobart Town, the meetings of which 

 were held in the Government-house, and the papers printed at his 

 expense. By a singular coincidence, among the Antarctic expedi- 

 tions visiting the colony he had occasion to welcome the "Erebus" 

 and "Terror," the ships which he was afterwards to command in 

 the final and fatal expedition of his life. 



