560 THE FRANKLIN RELICS. 



into oonmileration, there can be little doubt that it was 

 in the summer of 1848, and that the feeble band which 

 perished at the mouth of the Great Fish River, while 

 waiting for the disruption of the ice, were the last sur- 

 vivors of the gallant crews of the Erebus and Terror. 



With regard to the ships, the substance of the infor- 

 mation obtained from the Esquimaux is, that " several 

 years ago" one ship was crushed by the ice off the 

 north shore of King William's Land ; and that the 

 other was diifted ashore in the fall of the same year. 

 This destruction of one ship and wreck of another 

 occurred, so far as Capt. M'Clintock could ascertain, 

 subsequently to their abandonment. Some of the na- 

 tives, seen by him, had visited the wreck as late as the 

 winter of 1857-58. An intelligent old woman stated 

 that on boaid the wrecked ship there was one dead 

 white man, " a tall man with long teeth and large 

 bones." Th^re had been, "at one time, many books 

 on board of her, as well as other things ; but all had 

 been taken away or destroyed when she was last at the 

 wreck." If the wreck still remains visible, she proba- 

 bly lies upon some one of the off-lying islets to the 

 southward between Capes Crozier and Herschell ; as no 

 signs of her could be discovered on the shore of King 

 William's Land. 



The following description of the affecting memorials 

 brought home by Capt. M'Clintock, as they appeared at 

 the United Service Museum, where they were tempo- 

 rarily deposited, is by a writer in the London News : 



"In the first case is the ' ensign' of one of the ships, 

 reduced almost to shreds, but still preserving its colors, 

 and reminding the spectators of the many cheerless 

 days upon which it must have fluttered sadly, but still 

 proudly, from the mast of the ice-bound vessel. In a 

 corner of the same case is also a thin tin cylinder, stained 



