

FATE OF FRANKLIN. 293 



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be gone through by Barrow's Strait, but whether south 

 or north of Parry's Group, remains to be proved. I am 

 for going north, edging north-west till in longitude 140, 

 if possible." 



Captain Sir John Ross records, in February, 1847, his 

 opinion that the expedition was frozen up be3^ond Mel- 

 ville Island, from the known intentions of Sir John 

 Franklin to put his ships into the drift-ice at the western 

 end of Melville Island ; a risk which was deemed in the 

 highest degree imprudent by Lieutenant Parry and the 

 officers of the expedition of 1819-20, with ships of a less 

 draught of water, and in every respect better calculated 

 to sustain the pressure of the ice, and other dangers to 

 which they must be exposed. The expedition certainly 

 did not succeed in passing Behring's Strait ; and, if not 

 totally lost, must have been carried by the drift-ice to 

 the southward, on land seen at a great distance in that 

 direction, from which the accumulation of ice behind 

 them would, as in Ross's own case, forever prevent the 

 return of the ships. When we remember with what 

 extreme difficulty Ross's party travelled three hundred 

 miles over much smoother ice after they abandoned their 

 vessel, it appears very doubtful whether Franklin and 

 his men, one hundred and thirty-eight in number, could 

 possibly travel six hundred miles. 



In the contingency of the ships having penetrated 

 Borne considerable distance to the south-west of Cape 

 Walker, and having been hampered and crushed in the 

 narrow channels of the archipelago, which there are 

 reasons for believing occupies the space between Victo- 

 ria, Wollaston, and Banks's Lands, it is remarked by 

 Sir John Richardson, that such accidents among ice are 

 seldom so sudden but that the boats of one or of both 

 ships, with provisions, can be saved ; and, in such an 

 event, the survivors would either return to Lancaster 



