214 BOOTHIA 



retreating crews after leaving their ships ; and down 

 the coast he traced camp after camp, and death after 

 death. Irving's remains were brought away and are 

 buried at Edinburgh. The spot where they were found 

 was Cape Jane Franklin. 



More fortunate than Franklin was Captain Roald 

 Amundsen. Leaving Christiania in the Gjoa on the 

 16th of June, 1903, he crossed the Atlantic and pro- 

 ceeded down Peel Sound, past Bellot Strait, and along 

 the west coast of Boothia, where a fire on the ship did 

 a certain amount of damage, and, struggling thereafter 

 for ten days among shoals and rocks, down James 

 Ross Strait, past Matty Island into Rae Strait, he 

 dropped anchor in Petersen Bay, King William Land. 

 For his base station he required a site in which the 

 inclination was eighty-nine degrees, and at Gjoahaven, 

 in this bay, he found it in 68 30' N., 96 W. 



Here he arranged his headquarters for his observa- 

 tions on the Magnetic Pole which were kept going 

 night and day for nineteen months ; and here he stayed 

 for two winters, moving about in the country around 

 and over into Boothia, where he proved that the Pole 

 was not immovable and stationary, but in all likelihood 

 in continual movement. Leaving the south-eastern 

 corner of King William Land in his little ship he 

 passed through Simpson Strait, linking up with Collin- 

 son ; and, like him, he was delayed for a winter on the 

 coast of the American mainland. Through Bering 

 Strait he reached San Francisco, where the voyage 

 ended in the sale of the Gjoa. Thus of Amundsen it 

 can be said, without any qualification whatever, that 

 he accomplished the North- West Passage. 



