392 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



travel over Siberia, to the extreme edge of the Russian settlements, 

 (a journey which occupies the post six months,) then to traverse the 

 wilds of the Tchuktchi race, and from their shores to pass over 

 channels of water in india rubber or skin canoes, to tracks inhabited 

 by the most Northern Esquimaux, and there endeavor to learn the fate of 

 is countrymen. This plan was warmly supported by many of the most 

 eminent scientific men of Europe, Humboldt, Erman, Col. Sabine, Mur- 

 chison, and others ; a considerable sum to aid in the defrayment of 

 expenses was also granted by the English Government. Under these 

 auspices, Lieut. Pirn visited St. Petersburgh, to obtain the sanction of 

 the Russian authorities. The report, however, of a council of Russian Of- 

 ficers was adverse to the enterprise. They represented that in order to en- 

 able travellers, furnished with instruments and interpreters, to travel 

 the ultra- Siberian country of the Tchuktchi, previous arrangements 

 of 18 months would be required to assemble the necessary quantity of 

 _dogs and sledges ; and that as the former expedition undertaken thirty 

 years since by Von Wrangel, and others, had, by withdrawing 

 the use of many of the dogs, produced fatal diseases among the natives, 

 and great mortality ; such an expedition ought not to be undertaken 

 without motives of overwhelming necessity. In short, being informed 

 that such an expedition could not be put in motion before March, 1853, 

 and being aware of the responsibilities which they would be led 

 into, whether as respected their relation to the native tribes, or to the 

 young British officers, whose life they thought would be uselessly 

 perilled, the Russian Government declined to co-operate in the pro- 

 ject. Permission was, however, given to Lieut. Pirn to travel in 

 Siberia in any direction. He was, however, compelled to aban- 

 don the enterprise, and has since sailed in the expedition of Sir Ed- 

 ward Belcher. 



In regard to the probabilities of the existence of Sir John Frank- 

 lin and his party, who have now been absent seven years, most of the 

 English geographers cling to the hopeful, rather than the desponding 

 view of Arctic chances. The able Arctic naturalists, Richardson 

 and Scoresby, the experienced seaman Kellet, and the practical ex- 

 plorer of snow-clad lands, Rae, all coincide in the belief that annual 

 food sufficient to sustain life may have been found. Capt. Omnian- 

 ney, who explored in 1850-51 the coast line to the south of Cape 

 Walker, found the land he traversed very sterile, and affording little 

 animal sustenance. On the other hand it is clear from the testimony of 

 many explorers, that animals do abound in much higher latitudes than 

 those explored by Capt. Omnianney. It is an interesting fact, that 

 this unequal distribution of the means of supporting life is coincident 

 with the direction of the isothermal lines. It must also be remembered, 

 that during the last century, three out of four Russian sailors 

 returned in good health from an exile of more than six years on the 

 desolate Island of Spitzbergen ; and while we may be permitted to 

 hope, that Sir John Franklin and party may have been equally fortu- 

 nate with the Russian sailors, it must also be considered, that they 

 may have been compelled to take refuge on coasts where few animals, 



