COLLINSON'S VOYAGE 175 



the dog-sledge with two men came into view. Pirn's 

 arrival was most fortunate for the sufferers, for the 

 captain, as a desperate resource, was in spite of the 

 doctor's protests just about to send off two sledge 

 parties of the invalids to take their chance of escaping 

 somehow, as there was no hope of their recovery in 

 the ship ; and on examination by the doctor of the 

 Resolute, it was found that every man of the crew was 

 more or less affected by the disease. So the ship was 

 abandoned in Mercy Bay, and the officers and crew, 

 crossing to the Resolute, reached England by way of 

 Hudson Strait. 



Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever 

 accomplished by a sailing-ship in the Arctic regions. 

 It lasted from 1850 to 1855 five years and a hundred 

 and sixteen days all the way out across the Atlantic 

 and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a 

 hundred and twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the 

 Arctic sea, coming nearest at the time to completing 

 the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of Wales 

 Strait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one 

 joining with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait, 

 the other with Franklin's up Victoria Strait), and 

 approaching nearer than any other naval expedition 

 to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's 

 route for some distance, and passing within thirty miles 

 of the spot where the vessels he was in search of had 

 been abandoned, though unfortunately, like Rae, he 

 was on the west side of the waterway instead of the 

 east. 



Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the Enterprise 

 went north from Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort 



