326 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS— AMERICA. [May 23, 1859. 



no intelligence, there will be grave cause for solicitude and for regret 

 that Captain M'Clintock should have been left without that support 

 from the west which I have invariably advocated. 



Even now we must deplore that the representations made to Her 

 Majesty's Government to induce them to cooperate in this national 

 undertaking by sending or by aiding to send a second vessel to meet 

 the Fox through the route of Behring Strait, which was proved 

 by Collinson to be so sure and safe for ships of any size, have not 

 been attended to, and that the Fox^ equipped and maintained as she 

 is almost entirely at the expense of Lady Franklin, should have 

 been permitted to go forth unaided on her holy errand. This con- 

 sideration receives additional force from the fact that an Arctic ves- 

 sel, especially presented by the United States Government, remains 

 unemployed in our own waters ; and when, in addition to the primary 

 object of following up the traces of our missing countrymen, she 

 could have been employed in making those magnetical observations 

 on the north coast of the American continent, which the President 

 and Council of the Eoyal Society have pointed out as being of great 

 importance. Upon this subject it remains only to be remarked, that 

 when Captain M'Clintock sailed from Aberdeen on the 30th of June, 

 1857, there was still a well-founded hope that the Government would 

 make this concession in the interests of humanity and science, since 

 there was ample time for the fitting out of a second ship before the 

 month of December following, the season of departure for Behring 

 Strait. In anticipation of such assistance, the far-sighted and expe- 

 rienced commander of the Fox communicated to Captain Maguire, 

 whose knowledge of the western route rendered him peculiarly fitted 

 to receive such confidence, the views he entertained as to the manner 

 in which two ships, thus converging to the same specified field of 

 search, might act in concert for the common object. It is painful 

 to reflect upon what must be the feeling of disappointment of Cap- 

 tain M'Clintock, when, on reachiug near to his goal, he finds none 

 of those preconcerted marks or signals indicative of the approaching 

 succour and cooperation of which he may stand in need. 



While the spirit of Arctic enterprise seems almost to have departed 

 from among us, our kindred nation on the opposite side of the 

 Atlantic, entering upon it in the first instance with the kind feeling 

 of succouring our missing countrymen, appear inclined to pursue a 

 path from which so much honour has redounded, and we have 

 received notices of their intention to equip from that country another 

 expedition, having for its object the further examination of Smith 



