FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN EXPEDITION 



could not have occurred on the coast between Capes Victory and 

 Herschel; for in that case the natives would assuredly have appro- 

 priated the relics discovered by McClintock and Hobson. We come, 

 therefore, to McClintock's conclusion, that the wrecked ship went 

 ashore somewhere within the region frequented by the Fish River 

 Eskimos; and that in the years 1857-58 the ice had probably swept 

 her away again, and finally destroyed her. 



Let the reader remember, as a commentary on the vanity of 

 human wishes, that the point at which the "Erebus" and "Terror" 

 were caught in the ice in 1846, was but ninety miles from the point 

 reached by Dease and Simpson in their boats in 1838-39. So that 

 had Franklin and his followers but accomplished those ninety miles 

 of open water, they would have won the prize for which they had 

 dared and endured so much, and have returned home to enjoy the 

 well-earned applause of their countrymen. But Providence had 

 decreed otherwise. "They were to discover," says the historian of 

 their labors, "the great highway between the Pacific and Atlantic. 

 It was given them to win for their country a discovery for which 

 she had risked her sons and lavishly spent her wealth through many 

 centuries; but they were to die in accomplishing their last great 

 earthly task; and, still more strange, but for the energy and devo- 

 tion of the wife of their chief and leader, it would in all probability 

 never have been known that they were indeed the first discoverers 

 of the Northwest Passage." 



We have not completed our story. Closely connected with it is 

 another record of adventure, that of the solution of the problem of 

 the Northwest Passage by the actual fact of passing through it. 

 As this was accomplished by one of the searchers for the Franklin 

 relics, the relation of it properly fits in with the story of the search. 

 The feat was performed by Captain Robert McClure, partly on 

 shipboard and partly by sledging, in 1853. His voyage was one of 

 leading importance, in view of its result, and merits description 

 here. 



