426 POSTSCRIPT. 



Mr. Rae, in April last,was on the eve of setting out from 

 Great Bear Lake, in the hope of crossing on the ice to Victoria 

 Land, and of continuing his search in a boat as soon as the 

 navigation opened. Though he may not actually attain Lieu- 

 tenant Osborn's furthest, he may, under favourable circum- 

 stances, approach so near to the scene of that officer's search, 

 or of Lieutenant M'Clintock's, as to prove, should he find 

 no traces of the ships, that the intervening space is too con- 

 fined for the seclusion of living men. Captain M'Clure, who 

 passed to the eastward of Point Barrow last season, if he 

 found the sea as open as the more sanguine believe it to be, 

 may have reached the west side of Parry's Archipelago, and 

 have spent the winter not far from the supposed outlet of 

 Victoria Channel ; and this season Captain Collinson may be 

 sailing eastward in the same direction. It is from Beering's 

 Straits, then, that we are next to look for tidings of great 

 interest to the civilised world, which sympathises so univer- 

 sally with the efforts made to trace and relieve so many 

 gallant victims to science.* 



20 October, 1851. 



* With reference to Sir John Ross's pigeons, mentioned in a note 

 on page 157. of Vol. II., it appears that he despatched the youngest 

 pair on the 6 th or 7th of October, 1850, in a basket suspended to a 

 balloon, during a W.N.W. gale. By the contrivance of a slow-match 

 the birds were to be liberated at the end of twenty-four hours. 



THE END. 



London : 



spottiswoodes and shaw, 

 New-Street-Square. 



t 



