REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 17 



had previously been ascertained — ^^that the missing ships had spent 

 their first winter at Beechy island. Later in the same year the cele- 

 brated traveller of the Hudson' s Bay Company, Dr. Rae, ascertained 

 that the missing voyagers had been seen on the west coast of King 

 William's land in the spring of 1850, and that it was supposed they 

 had all died on an estuary of the Great Fish river. 



The attempts, in 1855, of the Hudson's Bay Company to explore 

 this river resulted in obtaining but little additional information and 

 a few relics from the Esquimaux. It was at this time that Lady 

 Franklin, who had previously sent out three expeditions, again urged 

 the renewal of the search, that the fate of her husband and his com- 

 panions might not be left in uncertainty. She, therefore, undertook 

 once more the responsibility and expense of a final effort to "follow 

 their footsteps in their last journey upon earth," and if possible to 

 give to the world the scientific results of the expedition for which 

 these gallant men had probably sacrificed their lives. Li the spring 

 of 1857 Lady Franklin commenced the preparations for the contem- 

 plated expedition, and intrusted the command of it to Captain Mc- 

 Clintock. The small steamer "Fox,"of 180 tons register, was pur- 

 chased for the service, and was put in readiness by the end of June. 

 The expedition sailed from Aberdeen July 1, 1857, and after a favor- 

 able run across the Atlantic, passed Cape Farewell, the southern 

 point of Greenland, on the 13th of July, and arrived at Fredericshaab 

 on the 19th of the same month. After taking in coal at Waigat, 

 they arrived at Upernavik, and then bore away on the 6th of August 

 directly westward, for the purpose of crossing Baffin's bay, but on 

 the evening of the 8th their progress in that direction was stopped by 

 impenetrable ice in latitude 72° 40' and longitude 59° 50'. They 

 then steered to the northward, in the hope of finding a passage west- 

 ward, but in this they were disappointed, and, on the 19th of August, 

 became entangled in the ice, and thus remained 242 days, until April, 

 1858. During this period the "Fox" drifted from latitude 75° north 

 and longitude 62° west, to latitude 63° 40' north and longitude 59° 

 Avest, or 1,385 statute miles in a southeasterly direction, almost to 

 the lower extremity of Greenland. 



On the 26th of April the ice suddenly and almost entirely disap- 

 peared, and the ship was again headed northward for another attempt, 

 and arrived on the 19th of June in Melville bay, and thence again 

 steered westward across Baffin's bay, and finally entered Lancaster 

 sound in the beginning of August. They thence sailed westwardly 



