﻿12 franklin's expedition. 



scarcely possible to believe that two vessels so 

 strongly fortified as the " Erebus " and " Terror," 

 and found by previous trials to be capable of sus- 

 taining so enormous a pressure, should both of 

 them have been so suddenly crushed as to allow no 

 time for active officers and men, disciplined and pre- 

 pared for emergencies of the kind, to get out their 

 boats. And having done so, they would have had 

 little difficulty in reaching one of the many whalers, 

 that were occupied in the pursuit of fish in those 

 seas for six weeks after the discovery ships were 

 last seen. Moreover, had the ships been wrecked, 

 some fragments of their spars or hulls would have 

 been found floating by the whalers, or being cast 

 on the eastern or western shores of the bay, would 

 have been reported by the Greenlanders or Eskimos. 

 Neither are any severe storms recorded as having 

 occurred then or there, nor did any unusual cala- 

 mity befall the fishing vessels that year. 



With respect to Sir John Franklin having chosen 

 to enter Jones's or Smith's Sounds in preference 

 to Lancaster Sound, his known habit of strict ad- 

 herence to his instructions is a sufficient answer, 

 and the extract quoted above from his letter to 

 Lieutenant Colonel Sabine, which gives his latest 

 thoughts on the subject, plainly says that such a 

 course would not be pursued until a second winter 

 had proved the impracticability of the route laid 



