10 DISCOVERIES BY THE LATE EXPEDITION [Nov. 14, 1859. 



her efforts in spite of cold calculation and bitter sarcasm, until she had attained 

 a successful issue — an issue that had cast its stamp upon the history of the 

 world ; and when Time had shed its halo over the deeds of this generation and 

 it was told how the corner-stone to Columbus's great discovery was laid by 

 the expedition under Sir John Franklin, it would also be remembered that, 

 after the nation's treasure failed, the widow's mite prevailed. 



A noble national picture is before us, one on which we have been occupied 

 for three centuries and a half ; it was begun by Sebastian Cabot in 1497 and 

 completed, that is to say the water-boundaiy to the continent of America, was 

 ascertained by Sir J. Franklin in 1847. Little by little had it arrived at its 

 present state of perfection. On it was shown where Beech ey, following up the 

 discoveries of Cook, was joined by Simpson, who took up the course Franklin 

 pursued to the westward of the Mackenzie. 



On the opposite side Rae joined the explorations of Dease and Simpson to 

 those of Ross. At the northern part of the picture was seen where M'Clure, 

 by one long stride, joined Parry. The top of the frame to this picture may be 

 said to have been found when the graves at Beechey Island were discovered 

 by the expedition under Admiral Austin : the bottom was furnished by the 

 relics brought home by Dr. Rae from the Isthmus of Boothia. You bave 

 heard this evening how the devotion of a wife provided Captain M'Clintock 

 with the means of adding a side to it. This frame has been embellished by 

 the sympathy, by the aid, which has been afforded to us by our brethren on 

 the opposite side of the Atlantic ; it has been gilded by the death of Bellot : 

 one side is yet wanting before we can hang it up side by side with that of the 

 achievements of our countrymen in the East, an assurance to after ages that 

 it was the habit of Britons in this our time to follow up the fate of their 

 fellow-countrymen, whether they were engaged in quelling rebellion in the 

 burning clime of India or in the prosecution of science in the frozen regions of 

 the Pole. 



Captain Sheraed Osborn, f.e.g.s., expressed a conviction that the search 

 after the Frankhn expedition was now closed and that it was perfectly useless to 

 pursue it further, and he fully concurred in the logical conclusions arrived at by 

 Captain M'Clintock in the paper just read. No one could feel the responsibility 

 of such an assertion more deeply than himself ; but having arrived at that con- 

 clusion it was only just to that gallant explorer, as well as to the influential 

 meeting now present, that he should frankly state his opinion. Every one 

 present, he was sure, would give Captain M'Clintock credit for not having 

 hastily arrived at such a conclusion. Captain M'Clintock had been striving 

 to unravel this problem during a long service of eleven years in the Arctic 

 Regions and in four separate expeditions : such a man was not likely to say 

 that all farther efforts were useless unless he conscientiously knew and believed 

 it to be so. After perusing Captain M'Clintock's Journal, which had been 

 written from day to day without any wish to arrive at any particular theory, 

 and therefore on that ground eminently valuable, he was convinced that what- 

 ever track the missing men of the crews of the Erehus and Terror took, it was 

 their last journey on earth, and that they must have perished between Cape 

 Victory and the Hudson Bay Company's posts. It mattered little what track 

 they pursued after leaving Beechey Island : it was enough to know that they 

 reached the point where the ships were known to have been abandoned. After 

 that they had the important fact that in twenty months the ships drifted only 

 twelve or fourteen miles. He thought Captain Crozier only did what any 

 other naval officer would have done under the circumstances, in abandoning 

 his ships, for three long winters in that region was more than enough for any 

 human being ; yet the distance from Cape Victory, where those starving men 

 landed, to the Hudson Bay Company's posts, was so gi'eat, nearly 1000 miles, 

 that it was next to impossible that any of them could ever travel such a 



