296 FATE OF FRANKLO. 



former expeditions, if the survivors are paralyzed by 

 the depressing attacks of scurvy, it would then be 

 impossible for them, however desirous they might be, to 

 leave the ship, which must thus become their last most 

 anxious abode. 



" If, however, open water should have allowed Sir 

 John Franklin to have resorted to his boats, then I am 

 persuaded he would make for either the Mackenzie 

 River, or, which is far more likely, from the almost cer- 

 tainty he must have felt of finding provision, Cape 

 Clarence and Fury Point. I am aware that the whole 

 chances of life, in this painful case, depend on food ; but 

 when I reflect on Sir John Franklin's former extraor- 

 dinary preservation under miseries and trials of the most 

 severe description, living often on scraps of old leather 

 and other refuse, I cannot despair of his finding the 

 means to prolong existence till aid be happily sent 

 him." 



In regard to the advantages of an exploration by the 

 way of Behring's Strait, Sir John Richardson writes : 



" The climate of Arctic America improves in a sensi- 

 ble manner with an increase of western longitude. 

 On the Mackenzie, on the 135th meridian, the sum- 

 mer is warmer than in any district of the continent 

 in the same parallel ; and it is still finer, and the 

 vegetation more luxuriant, on the banks of the Yucon, 

 on the 150th meridian. This superiority of climate 

 leads me to infer that ships well fortified against drift- 

 ice will find the navigation of the Arctic seas more 

 practicable in its western portion than it has been found 

 to the eastward. This inference is supported by my 

 own personal experience, as far as it goes. I met with 

 no ice in the month of August, on my late voyage, till I 

 attained the 123d meridian, and which I was led, from 



