Nov. 14, 1859.] IN SEARCH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 7 



expedition, and which had revealed to us, for the first time, the dis- 

 coveries and fat€ of Franklin. That certainly was a triumph for the 

 British nation, and we must all rejoice that it has heen accomplished by 

 the devotion and energy of an Englishwoman. To Lady Franklin must 

 be accorded the great praise of having never desisted in her efforts until 

 she had sent out a fourth expedition, none of those imdertaken by the 

 Government having been successful ; and the success which she obtained 

 in such a cause was as great an honour as ever fell to the lot of an English- 

 woman. 



He would not enter into any analysis of the views which Captain M'Clin- 

 tock had put forth in so clear and able a manner. He would only announce 

 that a work was forthcoming, which he (Sir l\. Murchison) had had the privi- 

 lege of reading, in which would be narrated in a much more attractive manner 

 — for his intrepid friend had not done justice to himself in the very brief 

 abstract he had read to the meeting — the marvellous perils he and his asso- 

 ciates had undergone. 



Two of Captain M'Clintock's distinguished comrades now sat near him, 

 Captain Hobson and Dr. WWker, whose exploits are well described in the 

 narrative of Captain M'Clintock. There is a fourth member of the expedition 

 whose modesty has induced him to conceal himself in some corner of the 

 room — Captain Allen Young — a gentleman, who, leaving the merchant marine 

 and a lucrative command, threw not only his own services into this venture, 

 but also subscribed 500?, towards carrying it into practical effect. 



To geographical science the results of Captain M'Clintock's expedition were 

 little less than glorious, for, among other results, it had determined for the first 

 time the navigability of Bellot Strait, and proved its southern shore to be 

 the northernmost headland of the American continent. By examining the 

 west coast of Boothia to the Magnetic Pole, and thence down to the mouth of 

 the Back Kiver, he had demonstrated that if ever a ship shall complete the 

 north-west passage it will be by that route. In the forthcoming narrative 

 the difficulties which those gallant men had surmounted would be presented 

 to the world in detail. The very first incident of their voyage in a little yacht 

 of only 170 tons, was, that when they had penetrated to Melville Sound in 

 Baffin Bay, they were frozen up for the winter, and then drifted back in ice 

 1200 geographical miles into the Atlantic. But they returned to the charge, 

 and eventually succeeded for the first time in revealing the fate of the illus- 

 trious Franklin and his associates. There was no doubt that Franklin pro- 

 ceeded' farther to the north in a ship than any of the navigators who went 

 in search of him up Wellington Channel — ^and then he returned by performing 

 that extraordinary voyage round Comwallis Island, by which, in the first 

 year of his enterprise, he proved it to be an island completely separated by a 

 navigable channel from Bathurst Island. 



Sir Edward Belcher, r.n., f.r.g.s., coinciding generally with what had been 

 stated by Captain M'Clintoek, still felt it a duty to make a few remarks on 

 the supposed course which Sir J. Franklin had adopted, and, commencing with 

 his passage up the Wellington Channel, believed, from the documents found, 

 that he must have reached as far as the north-western horn of Crescent 

 Island ; and he believed he stated the opinion of those who accompanied him, 

 that Sir J. Franklin could not have proceeded farther. 



He (Sir Edward) could get no farther, but his expedition was blocked up 

 in a similar manner. He had delayed a little to raise a cairn and leave 

 notices on the summit of Cape Perry, during which interval the ice closed 

 from the westward and blocked further progress ; otherwise, indeed if he 

 had been forty-eight hours earlier, he might have passed into open water, and 

 possibly have passed out at Behring Strait, or beyond the northern limits of 

 Asia. 



