154 THEORETICAL EXPLORERS. 



exercise. It is easy, perhaps, for courageous chamber 

 theorists to work themselves up to the sticking-point and 

 imagine what their Quixotic spirits would impel them 

 to do. But to such self-sufficient heroes I would offer 

 " ships, stores, and men; but if you wantonly lose a life, at 

 your hands I demand the sacrifice." Men who command 

 must feel for the lives entrusted to their keeping ; and 

 good men do not follow mad-brained fools. 



The distinct increased dimensions of all the floe ice 

 noticed to the westward, as well as northward, of the 

 Queen's Channel, is, to my inind, satisfactory proof that 

 it belongs to another sea and has no connection with 

 Baffin's Bay, Lancaster Sound, or the Wellington Chan- 

 nel; and although it may have considerable motion in 

 summer, I yet believe that in the Victoria Archipelago, 

 as in the case between Banks' Land and Melville Island, 

 it remains unbroken for years, even ages. With refer- 

 ence to the evidence given before the Arctic Committee, 

 as to the security of Erebus and Terror Bay, we have too 

 good reason to know to the contrary, and that there is 

 not a more unsafe position in these seas; nor do I believe 

 that the vessels of Sir John Franklin ever cut into that 

 bay sufficiently deep to occupy the position imagined. 

 But upon the matter of being blown out, we have now 

 more facts to argue on, and we feel assured that with a 

 northerly gale instead of southerly in 1852 and 1853 the 

 ' North Star' must have been destroyed. 



Pursuing however the questions relating to our more 

 fortunate friends of the Western Division, I cannot omit 

 inserting here the report of game captured, and adding 

 that about a dozen hares and the same number of ptar- 



