474 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS. [May 25, 1857. 



Orkney men, Greenland wlialers, so many young and hardy consti- 

 tutions, with so much intelligent experience to guide them, I cannot 

 realize that some may not be j^et alive — that some small squad or 

 squads, aided or not aided by the Esquimaux, may not have found a 

 hunting ground." 



On this subject there has truly been much misapprehension in 

 the mind of the public, ov^ring to their ignorance of the geogra- 

 phical data on which hope is founded. The area within which 

 some of the crews of Franklin were last seen, though much further 

 to the south than the wild islands and headlands of the Arctic 

 Archipelago, in which the Eesolute and her companions were 

 abandoned, and though easily and safely approached by sea, either 

 from the west or east, is hopelessly cut off from all land furnishing the 

 necessaries of life, by a broad, cold, and sterile region, occupied by a 

 few -WTetched natives. The individuals of Franklin's expedition who 

 might have survived, if located to the north among the Esquimaux 

 who fatten upon seals and walruses, could by no possibility track their 

 way southwards over these wilds, on which even the reindeer finds no 

 sustenance. It is chiefly in the meridians on either side of the Back 

 Eiver that this sterility prevails ; and here it was that Franklin and 

 his former companions, Back and Richardson, suffered so intensely 

 in 1824, that their existence was then nearly terminated. 



With such a wilderness between them and any home, the ex- 

 hausted crew of Franklin, contemplating nothing but starvation 

 in that sterile icy region of central North America, would naturally, 

 as Kane has suggested, seek a refuge among the Esquimaux, in 

 some chosen spot where animals abound. 



When we know from the declaration of a highly respectable sea- 

 man still living (one indeed of the crew of Parry),* that he was on 

 the point of embracing the life of those savages, merely for the 

 allurements of the chase and the wild attractions it offered, we can 

 well imagine that those who were left of Franklin's noble crew, 

 should, according to the dictates of nature, endeavour in like manner 

 to prolong their existence. Let it therefore be impressed on the 

 public mind, that although the area, on the southern edges of which some of 

 Franklin's people were last seen, has teen approached and can he easily again 

 visited hy ships, it has never yet been examined ; | and also, that though it be 

 to the south of many tracts formerly penetrated, yet is it so cut off by impe- 



* See ' Times,' December 20, 1856, Letter from Mr. John Pead to myself, 

 t Montreal Island, which has alone been visited, is incapable of affording sus- 

 tenance even to Esquimaux. . 



