24 FINDLAY. [Jan. 28, 1856. 



the provisions now deposited on the shores of the Polar Sea, and by our 

 experience, be prosecuted without risk to life ; and the value of the 

 documents to be recovered ought to be placed before the public, toge- 

 ther with the fact that the position where to search was clearly indi- 

 cated. It would give him pleasure to see the point reached by the 

 * Enterprise ' passed by others, so that we might maintain the position 

 our ancestors had won. 



Sir G. Back said he had been sent for by the Duke of Northumber- 

 land respecting the ships said to have been seen on the iceberg. After 

 careful consideration, it seemed uncertain whether they were ships, 

 although the description corresponded with that of the 'Erebus' and 

 ' Terror.' He then described the drift of the latter ship when under 

 his command. She was cradled on the ice for four months ; had at one 

 time twenty-four feet of ice under her ; was apparently released, first by 

 revulsion of the floe, and again by contact with other ice, but was 

 afterwards thrown on her beam ends by the uprising of a piece of ice 

 attached to the keel ; the ship was a wreck, and only kept together by 

 being wrapped round with chain. These facts would show that a 

 vessel drifting so far might not always remain on the same piece of ice, 

 and he concluded that if a ship were again forced on a floe she must 

 be injured, and if injured her fate must be doubtful. He thought the 

 improbability was great of vessels getting so far, and that they should not 

 have been seen by whalers or vessels crossing the Atlantic was still 

 more surprising, and concluded by expressing his admiration of the 

 manner in which Mr. Anderson had conducted his expedition. 



In answer to questions from the Chair, he added that although he did 

 not see the probability of sending out another expedition, he wished 

 that the space between Osborn's and Winniett's farthest could have 

 been examined, as well as that between Rae's farthest and Peel Strait. 

 With respect to the preservation of papers, &c., he would only remark 

 that the sails of the ' Resolute ' became so rotten in seventeen months 

 that the sailors could put their fingers through them. 



Sir E. Belcher said his experience militated against any outlet from 

 Parry's Sound. The drift was found, both by Parry and Kellett, to be 

 southerly. He thought it impossible that any vessel having been out 

 three years, and subject to its influence, could get past Cape Walker ; 

 none of the expeditions had found the sea there unfrozen, and the 

 locality was visited by the expedition under Captain Austin as well as 

 by himself: moreover, the stream sets through Wellington and By am 

 Martin Channels to the S.E. part of Cape Walker, and the same 

 current taking Sir James Ross's vessels, had forced them to windward 

 against a N.E. gale no less than forty miles in twenty-four hours. The 



