394 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. (Vow. VIII. 
for a definite knowledge of the fate of Sir John Franklin and his party, 
who perished in an attempt to discover the “ North-West Passage.” 
Sir John Franklin had begun his naval career as a midshipman on 
the Polyphemus at the battle of Copenhagen, and later had made two 
arduous journeys by land across the continent of America to its 
northern coast for the purpose of surveying and exploring its then un- 
known shore. The two volumes now lying before me contain a well 
written and beautifully illustrated account of the hardships endured and 
the results accomplished on these journeys. Few more interesting 
accounts of travel and adventure have ever been written. 
At a little later date other explorers almost completed the survey 
of the north west coast of America begun by Franklin. 
Finally the British Government decided that the time had arrived 
to take advantage of the knowledge so obtained, and to despatch a 
marine expedition from England to the Pacific by this north coast, and 
so confident was it of success that letters for some of the officers were 
ordered to be addressed to the Sandwich Islands. 
Accordingly two strong sailing ships, the Erebus and Terror, were 
fitted up and provided with auxiliary steam power, the first ships so 
provided for Arctic service, and were placed under the command of Sir 
John Franklin, who though now 59 years of age, was still very keen to 
undertake the enterprise. The crew all told consisted of 129 officers and 
men. On the 26th of May, 1845, with three years’ provisions on board, 
the ships sailed from London for the Pacific Ocean, all hands being 
confident that at last the discovery of “the passage” was assured. 
They sailed through Baffins Bay, up Lancaster Sound and 
Wellington Channel and then returned to Beechey Island, near the 
southwest angle of North Devon, where they spent the winter of 1845-6. 
What date they got out of their winter quarters at Beechey Island is 
not known, but during the following summer they sailed southwest- 
ward to Victoria Strait, off the northwest coast of King William 
Island, where, on the 11th of September, the two ships were beset in 
the Arctic ice pack. That winter was spent by the men in the ships 
surrounded by the Arctic ice, and probably their experiences were very 
similar to those of Nansen in the Fram, except that the men were 
much more closely huddled together, and that the ships were not so 
strongly built to resist the pressure of the ice. 
On the 11th of June, 1847, Sir John Franklin died on board his 
