IMPRESSIONS OF 1850-52. 255 



detection may possibly thwart our endeavours, but some 

 written evidence, I trust, may yet clear up the mystery. 



Something more than bare opinion will be required 

 for so far interfering with the convictions of Dr. Rae. 

 But I have for quite as long a series of years been con- 

 versant with great detail of preparation for every kind 

 of service. I know the difficulties of ice-travel, and I 

 am now more conversant with the disposition and ability 

 of men, under our latest improvements, to drag useless 

 weights. I know the probable difficulties of ice disasters ; 

 and when I clearly perceive method, cool calculation, and 

 the preservation of such valuables, I am impressed with 

 the conviction that adequate provision for very extended 

 travel was provided, and that before they became re- 

 duced every ounce of lumber would have been cast away. 

 Nor in such an estimate, believing in the powers of the 

 men engaged, am I prepared to concede that the scene 

 of disaster can be more distant than two hundred miles 

 from the position where the bodies are said to be. 



With this distance, or three degrees of latitude (70 

 to 73) in the compasses, they will be found within that 

 radius, to my conviction within Prince Regent's Inlet, 

 and such an opinion was hazarded before I left this 

 country. But with the radius of three degrees, 72 to 

 75, equidistant from Cape Riley from the spot where 

 the bodies are said to be and Igloolik, where I imagine 

 one division has gone, will intersect the spot where I 

 have imagined the disaster occurred. In a letter of the 

 27th of October and another of the 9th of November, I 

 suggested the following : 



" 1. That Sir J. Franklin met with disaster to the east- 



