GEOGRAPHIC CONQUESTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 428 



Parry, Boeehey, Franklin, and Richardson, diirino- the earlier years of 

 the century, helped to deline the North American "coast, and Scoivshy 

 outlined the east coast of Greenland. James Ross, in 1830, definitely 

 located the North Magiietic Pole at Cape Adelaide, in Boothia Felix, 

 and thr(H' years hiter Back discovered the Great Fish Rivei-. 



Of tlie many tragedies in the annals of Arctic history, none is more 

 terri])leand heart-rending- than tliat of Sir John Franklin and his crew 

 of one hundred and twenty-nine. The ErSux and the Terror, returiu^d 

 from the Antarctics, where they had carried Sir James Ross to splen- 

 did achievements, were placed at the disposal of Franklin, Avho had 

 been knighted for his gallant work in the Arctic regions in his earlier 

 years. He set out in May, 184o, and was last spoken hy a whalei- 

 while he was waiting for the ice to open sufficiently to enter Lancaster 



Fig. 4.— Arctic Rcgiuiis as known in I'JOO. 



Strait. The following year and tlic year after, his vessels were beset 

 by the ice near King William Land. Franklin died in June, 1847. 

 The crew had provisions only for one year longer, and as the vessels 

 were still icel)ound the one hundred and five survivors left their ships 

 in a desperate and vain attempt to light their ^^ ay over the ice to Great 

 Fish River. During 1848 and for many succeeding years expeditions 

 were dispatched l)oth l)y land and sea from the east, west, and south to 

 search for the missing men, but it was not until 1854 that Rae met a 

 young Eskimo who told him that four years previously forty white 

 men had been seen dragging a l)oat to the south on the west shore of 

 King William Land, and a few months later he had found the bodies 

 of thirtv of these men. 



