ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 243 



immense route, being dependent upon supplies of pemmekan, and 

 game casually killed upon the way. Then, after the exhaustion and 

 debility occasioned by the privations and fatigue already undergone, 

 commences the winter in quarters at the Great Fish River, with 

 a continuation, for five long months, of unvarying animal food ; and, 

 in the spring of 1834, begins the true labour of the expedition. 

 We fear, indeed, that cold, privation, and disease, will thin the num- 

 bers of the party, before emerging from winter- quarters and that 

 few of those who survive will ever return to winter- quarters again, 

 in the following year. Of all the attempts hitherto made to winter 

 in the Polar regions, we believe that a very scanty remnant of the 

 crews have ever resisted the effects of cold, scurvy, and mental des- 

 pondency: and greatly do we fear that, of the present expedition, 

 few will again reach their native country. Allowing that no dangers 

 threaten the party from the Indians, the wolves, or other enemies of 

 the stranger in those regions, we can see no substantial relief which 

 can be afforded to Captain Ross and his companions, by men who 

 will themselves be exhausted, and in no better condition than their 

 fellow wanderers in those solitary regions. It is also worthy of 

 remark, that if Captain Ross and his party be now in existence, and 

 within a distance of three hundred miles from the Great Fish River, 

 there is every probability that they will yet find their way, stocked 

 with supplies from their own vessels, to the settlements of the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company. Upon a full review of the project of the land 

 expedition, and the necessity of passing at least one entire winter in 

 the Polar regions, we are compelled to express our fears, that it will 

 prove utterly futile and unsuccessful. It may be characterized as a 

 curious and cruel absurdity, supported by public subscription, and 

 countenanced by a humane and enlightened government. 



We cannot but think how 'infinitely more judicious it would 

 have been, to have concentrated all the subscriptions of the public, 

 and the donation of the government, upon the single purpose of fit- 

 ting out a steam-vessel, to proceed, in the present spring, to the wreck 

 of the Fury. The necessary search might thus have been effected in 

 a single summer. If Captain Ross and his comrades be now in ex- 

 istence, still the intervention of another year, which must elapse 

 before the arrival at the Polar Sea, of Captain Back, may be fatal to 

 the party. But a steam-vessel, departing in the present spring, 

 would arrive at the wreck of the Fury very early in the summer, and 

 there replenishing her fuel, by breaking up the timbers of that vessel, 

 might proceed to the very highest latitudes ever yet attained, and 

 return in security in the autumn. 



A steam-vessel of the smallest burthen thirty or forty tons 

 would be sufficient for the purpose proposed ; and being partially 

 rigged, the voyage to the confines of the ice might be made, without 

 the consumption of any fuel whatever : by the use of sails, in pe- 

 riods of fair wind and at all available times, the stock of coal to 

 be conveyed might be much reduced, without detriment to that ce- 

 lerity of operation which must be the soul of this enterprize. We 

 believe that steam offers the only certain mode of reaching the scene 

 of the fate of Captain Ross : for we hold it to be highly improbable, 



