lOO SANDFOED FLEMING ON 



The " Enterprise " under Captain Collinson returned to England in 1854 by the Pacific. 

 The " Investigator," under Captain McClure, never returned. In the second year she 

 reached a palœocrystic region where she became hopelessly embedded in the ice never to 

 move again. In the third year, her perilous position having been discovered by a sledge 

 party under Captain Pim on a relief expedition, the ship was abandoned, and Captain 

 McClure his officers and crew to find safety marched over the ice to the "Resolute" of 

 Sir Edward Belcher's expedition which they reached on June 17th, 1853, after a 

 journey of two weeks. But they did not reach England until the following year. The 

 "Resolute" was caught in the pack ice and there remained during the winter of 

 1853-54. This vessel was eventually abandoned, on May 14th, 1854,^ to be recovered 

 in 1855, after drifting in the pack nearly a thousand miles. Meanwhile McClure and his 

 men reached England by a relief ship in the autumn of 1854. 



(12) General Results of the Maritime Expeditions. 



Thus terminated the voyages of discovery for a western passage for ships from Europe 

 to Asia. Since Cabot sailed from Bristol in 1497 irnder the auspices of Henry VII, up 

 to the day, when the return of Franklin was for ever despaired of, there have been almost 

 ceaseless efforts to obtain it. In the nxamberless attempts to find a north-west passage, 

 England has risked the lives of many of her adventurous sons. It is a story of heroic 

 struggles year after year in ice-encumbered regions, and of daring and unsuccessful 

 attempts for three and a half centuries. The single instance of partial success is 

 that of McClure, who traversed the route from the Pacific to the Atlantic with his ship's 

 crew. His ship was, however, left behind, and a second ship in which he found 

 refuge was abandoned, the voyagers reaching England on board of a third ship 

 after an absence of nearly five years. McClure was honoured and rewarded by the 

 British Parliament; he had demonstrated the possibility of passing between the two 

 oceans, but with the condition that for several degrees of longitude the passage is across an 

 impenetrable region of pala?ocrystic ice. We had thus a negative solution to the problem 

 which has tried the skill and daring of navigators ever since America was first discovered, 

 and on which the lives of many hundreds of brave men and many millions of money had 

 been expended. The obstacles to navigation around the northern extremity of the continent 

 have been proved to be insuperable. It had been established beyond all question, that 

 the climatic conditions of the Arctic Ocean render the passage of no commercial value 

 whatever, and that nature has imposed an adamantine barrier beyond the power of man 

 to remove. 



II.-DISCOVERIE§ BY L.A]¥D. 



(1) Explorations by the French Pioneers. 



If the maritime efforts extending over three and a half centuries, and of which the 

 above is only a faint outline, were, in view^ of the object sought, completely barren of 

 fruit, the overland journeys must be regarded in a different light. 



' The Resolute was found by a whaler from the United States, she was brought into port, and eventually 

 presented to the British Government by the Government of the United States. 



