A WINTER SEARCH USELESS. 577 



time McCHntock's parties were there, or they most assu- 

 redly would have seen it. In and about this boat, besides 

 the many skeletons alluded to, were found many relics, 

 most of them similar in character to those McClintock has 

 enumerated as having been found in the boat he discov- 

 ered. . . . 



" The same year that the Erebus and Terror were aban- 

 doned one of them consummated the great Northwest pas- 

 sage, having five men aboard. The evidence of the exact 

 number is circumstantial. Everything about this North- 

 west passage ship of Sir John Franklin's expedition was 

 in complete order ; four boats were hanging high up at the 

 ship's sides and one was on the quarter-deck; the vessel 

 was in its winter housing of sail or tent cloth. This vessel 

 was found by the Ook-joo-lik natives, near O'Reilly Island, 

 lat. 68 deg. 30 rnin. north, long. 99 deg. 8 min. west, early 

 in the spring of 1849, it being frozen in the midst of a 

 smooth and unbroken floe of ice of only one winter's for- 

 mation. . . . 



" To complete the history of Sir John Franklin's last 

 expedition, one must spend a summer on King William's 

 Land, with a considerable party, whose only business 

 should be to make searches for records which beyond 

 doubt lie buried on that island. I am certain, from what 

 I have heard the natives say, and from what I saw myself, 

 that little or nothing more can be gained by making searches 

 there when the island is clothed in its winter garb, for the 

 Esquimaux have made search after search, over all the 

 coast of King William's Land, on either side, from its 

 southern extreme up to Cape Felix, the northern point, 

 for anything and everything that belonged to the com- 

 panions of Sir John Franklin, and these searches have 

 been made Avhen the snow had nearly all disappeared 

 from the land. 



" My sledge company from Repulse Bay to King Wil- 

 liam's Land consisted of eleven souls, all Esquimaux. 



37 



