FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN EXPEDITION 267 



from the ice, and one of the first signs discovered by the searchers 

 after Franklin were the three headstones raised on that lonely isle 

 to the memory of W. Braine, John Hartwell, and John Torrington, 

 who died while the ships were wintering in the cold season of 

 1845-6. 



By July the ice had broken up and the voyage was resumed and 

 passed without any exceptional incident, up to the middle of Sep- 

 tember, 1846, when they were again caught by the ice, but 150 miles 

 nearer their destination than the year before. Only a hundred 

 miles more to be sailed over and they would be conquerors but 

 that hundred miles was too firmly blocked with ice-floes for them 

 ever to sail over. 



The winter of 1846-7 was passed off the most extreme northerly 

 point of King William's Land. The ice was particularly heavy, and 

 hemmed the vessels in completely, the surface being too rugged and 

 uneven to permit of traveling in the immediate vicinity even of 

 hunting parties. This was the more unfortunate because the pro- 

 visions were growing scant, and supplies brought in by hunters 

 would have been of great assistance. At the time of starting, the 

 vessels had been provisioned for three years. Two had now passed, 

 so that only a twelvemonth's stock of food remained in the holds. 

 It might take them all the next summer to work through the remain- 

 ing hundred miles of the passage, and that would leave them another 

 winter to face, unless they should find open water when they reached 

 the end. But, on the other hand, they might not be able to get 

 through in the time, or the passage might not be navigable. Either 

 possibility was full of very grave anxiety for those in command, for 

 it was a terrible prospect of being left, with one hundred and thirty 

 men to feed, in the midst of the frozen sea, "a hundred miles from 

 everywhere." 



The anxiety felt was shown by the despatch, as early as May, 

 or two months before the first flush of summer was due, of a 

 specially selected party of quick travelers to push forward over the 



