Jan. 28, 1856.] FINDLAY. 23 



recorded loss of ships to which they can be referred. The description 

 g-iven exactly agrees with the ' Erebus' and ' Terror/ The possibility 

 of their being those ships was demonstrated by numerous parallel cases 

 of the drifting of vessels. Of these several cases were cited, as occurring 

 between 1777 and 1836; after that, the particulars of the drift of Sir 

 James Ross in 1849, and especially of the American vessels under 

 Capt. De Haven, from September, 1850, to June, 1851 ; and the drift 

 of H.M.S. ' Resolute,' abandoned in May, 1854, and found in October, 

 1855, were gone into. A calculation was made from the data afforded 

 by these, that the two abandoned ships seen on the Newfoundland Banks 

 would pass down Barrow Strait and Lancaster Sound after Sir James 

 Ross left in 1849, and before the Austin squadron arrived there in 1850, 

 a period exactly agreeing with the appearance of the survivors on Point 

 Ogle and Montreal Island in the spring of 1850. The progress of the 

 Franklin Expedition may thus be briefly summed up : — They left the 

 Orkney Islands June 4, 1845 ; their last letters sent from Godhavn on 

 the W. coast of Greenland, July 11, 1845 ; were last seen in the middle 

 of Baffin Bay, July 26, 1845. They wintered at Beechey Island, and 

 when the ice broke up in 1846, went either northwards or westward, 

 the which cannot now be decided, and ultimately became imbedded, 

 and probably crushed, as stated to Dr. Rae, by the ice in Melville 

 Sound, from whence, slowly drifting eastward, in the autumn or winter 

 of 1849 they dismantled the ships and took to their boats, passing down 

 Peel Sound and Victoria Strait, and found their last resting-place at 

 the mouth of the Back River, where their relics were found in 1854 by 

 Pr. Rae, and in 1855 by Messrs. Anderson and Stewart. The aban- 

 doned ships, borne along by the constant circulating current-system, 

 imbedded in the heaped-up ice, ultimately reached the Bank of New- 

 foundland, and, being crushed, were, as soon as liberated by the thaw, 

 waterlogged, and sunk directly. No traces will ever be found to show 

 how the dreary period between 1846 and 1849-50 was passed, unless 

 at some future period any of their journals or papers may be recovered. . 



The President having remarked on the numerous subjects of interest 

 opened by Mr. Findlay's paper, said he hoped Captain Collinson would 

 favour the Meeting with his opinion on the probable site of the loss of 

 Sir J. Franklin. 



Captain Collinson said he thought the paper just read threw much 

 light on the subject, and, on the whole, agreed with Mr. Findlay ; he 

 thought the evidence strong that boats had reached the American 

 shore ; and that the search should be continued, on account of those 

 who had lost their lives iu solving this geographical problem, and 

 of our national honour, which would be stained if their relics 

 were discovered by another nation. The search might, by means of 



