266 NAVIGABLE N.W. PASSAGE. Chap. XVI. 



culty would have been overcome ; and south of Cape Vic- 

 toria I doubt whether any further obstruction would have 

 been experienced, as but little if any ice remained. The 

 natives told us the ice went away, and left a clear sea every 

 year. As our discoveries show Victoria Strait to be but 

 little more than 20 miles wide, the ice pressed southward 

 through so narrow a space could hardly have prevented our 

 crossing southward of it, to Victoria Land, and Cambridge 

 Bay, the wintering place reached by Collinson, from the west, 

 in 1852. 



In a season so favourable for navigation as to open Peel 

 Sound (as, for instance, in 1846, when Franklin sailed down 

 it), I think but comparatively little difficulty would be ex- 

 perienced until Victoria Strait was reached. Had Sir John 

 Franklin known that a channel existed on the eastern side 

 of King William's Land — so named by Sir John Ross, and 

 laid down by him as part of the mainland — he would not 

 have risked the besetment of his ships in the very heavy ice 

 to the westward of it ; but would have taken the eastern, 

 although more circuitous passage, and would in all pro- 

 bability have carried his ships safely through to Behring 

 Strait, in 1846. 



But Franklin had no alternative ; he was furnished with 

 charts which indicated no opening to the eastward of King 

 William's Land; 1 consequently he had but one course open 

 to him, and that the one he adopted. 



My own preference for the route by the east side of the 

 island has been formed with a knowledge of Rae's observa- 

 tions on that locality, and of the experience of Collinson to 

 the westward. I am of opinion that the barrier of ice off 

 Bellot Strait, some 3 or 4 miles wide, was the only obstacle 

 to our carrying the ' Fox,' according to my original inten- 

 tion, southward between Boothia and King William's Island 

 1 It was not until 1854 that its insularity was determined, by Dr. Rae. 



