32 



Government expeditions — such :is that under Coiumodore Phipps in 

 1773, — at the peace in 1815 we knew less of the geography and 

 conditions of Arctic land and sea than was known 200 years before. 

 Much less ; because Baffin's map had been lost, and his journal had 

 been voted a tissue of lies. It was then, however, that the energy 

 and influence of Sir John Barrow, the Secretary of the Admiralty, 

 gave a new impetus to the woik ; and during the next thirty years 

 exploration was earned on with something like regularitv. In 1845 

 the expedition commanded by Sir John Fj-anklin left our shores, 

 nevei' to return : for many j'ears its fate was utterly unknown ; nor 

 was the mj'stery fully cleared away until, in 1859, Sir Leopold 

 McClintock, then commanding the private ship "Fox," succeeded 

 in finding some few relics, which were sufficient to solve the very 

 sad problem. During the last year, an American officer. Lieutenant 

 Schwatka, with a small sledging party, re-visited the scene of 

 yic Clintock's discoveries, and ascertained that nothing of any 

 interest or importance had been left behind. 



It was in the course of the long search for this missing 

 e.Kpedition that most of the exact geography of that legion noith of 

 America was examined and charted : most of the islands west from 

 Baffin's Bay were coasted round, either by ship or sledge ; and long 

 before the search was finished, the North -West Passage — if it can 

 be called so — had been found by Mc Clure and his shipmates in the 

 •• Investigator." If it can be called so : for it was and is impassable 

 l)y ship. No ship, sailing-vessel or steamer, has yet passed from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific, or from the Pacific to the Atlantic, north of 

 the American continent. Ships have penetrated from the Atlantic 

 to the coast of Melville Island, and the east end of Banks Strait. 

 Yv^hat Mc Clure did, was to force his ship from the Pacific into the 

 Bay of Mercy ; and after being frozen in there for nearly two years, 

 to march across the ice to the "Resolute," then at Dealy Island in 

 Melville Sound. 



It was also in the course of tliis search that two small 

 American expeditions, commanded, one by Dr. Kane and the second 

 by Dr. Hayes, pushed far to the north through Smith Sound, and 

 leported certain experiences which seemed to point to the conclusion 

 that the climate sensibly ameliorated as the latitude increased. It 



