May 25, 1857.] OBITUARY. 375 



after active employment in the expedition to New Orleans in 1815, 

 he soon attained the rank of Lieutenant. 



In 1818, public attention was again attracted to Polar exploration, 

 which had been neglected during a lapse of forty-five years, chiefly 

 through the exertion and energetic writings of our associate, the late 

 Sir John Barrow. Lt. Beechey then served in the expedition under 

 Buchan, and was appointed to the Trent, commanded by Franklin, 

 who was also accompanied by Back. Having coasted the west side 

 of Spitzbergen, they were finally arrested by heavy floe-ice in lat. 

 80O 36' N. From some mistaken feeling on the subject, no account 

 of the proceeding was published till 1843, when Beechey, remem- 

 bering old Hakluyt's imputation on some of our early writers, who 

 he says " should have used more care in preserving the memoires 

 of the worthy actes of our nation," brought out, under the authority 

 of the Admiralty, a most interesting narrative of the voyage. 



Subsequently our adventurous young officer joined the Hecla, 

 and assisted the first great effort of the celebrated William Edward 

 Parry (his former shipmate) to cut through the barrier of ice into 

 Barrow Strait, beyond the 110th degree of west longitude, for 

 which these officers and their companions justly receiv^ed a parlia- 

 mentary reward. In 1821-2 he had the good fortune to serve 

 under the orders of our former esteemed President, Admiral 

 W. H. Smyth, then surveying the Mediterranean, in co-operation 

 with whose ship, the Adventure, he explored a considerable portion 

 of the north shore of Africa. 



During the three and a half succeeding years the sands of 

 Cyrenaic Africa were exchanged for Pacific and Arctic researches, 

 when, commanding the Blossom, Captain Beechey made accurate 

 surveys of many islands in the Pacific, of the coasts of Eussian 

 America aud of Behring Strait, of all of which he has left an admi- 

 rable record in the work entitled ' Narrative of a Voyage to the 

 Pacific and Behring Strait, to co-operate with the Polar Expedi- 

 tion.' In this publication, our respected President has left a record 

 of scientific knowledge which places him high among the standard 

 authors of our time. 



To one portion of this work, which describes the exhumation of 

 such vast quantities of bones of mammoths and other extinct mam- 

 malia from the cliffs of Escholtz Bay, in Eussian North America, 

 the late Dr. Buckland has rendered full justice. 



At a later period, Captain Beechey surveyed the west coast of 

 South America, and determined many points of high geographical 



