98 cruise OF THE NEPTUNE 
was found by Lt. Irving under the cairn supposed to have been 
built by Sir James Ross in 1831, 4 miles to the northward, 
where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in 
June, 1847. Sir James Ross' pillar has not, however, been 
found, and the paper has been transferred to this position which 
is that in which Sir J. Ross' pillar was erected. Sir John 
Franklin died on the 11th June, 1847, and the total loss by 
deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers & 15 
men. F. R. M. Crozier, Captain & Senior Offr., and start on 
to-morrow 26th, for back's Fish river. James Fitzjames, Cap- 
tain H.M.S. Erebus' The rest of the sad story may be shortly 
told : the distance to the mouth of the Fish river, from the spot 
where the ships were abandoned, is about 250 miles. They 
started from the ships dragging heavy boats on sleds. M'Clin- 
tock found one of the boats on the west side of King William 
island with two skeletons inside it; and the Eskimos told him 
that the men dropped down and died in the drag ropes. The 
Eskimos living at the mouth of Fish river said that about forty 
white men reached the mouth of the river, and dragged a boat 
as far as Montreal island in the estuary, where the natives 
found it and broke it up. The last of the survivors died shortly 
after the arrival of the summer birds. It is exceedingly doubt- 
ful, if their strength had lasted, whether they could have 
travelled over the thousand miles of barrens separating the 
mouth of the river from the nearest trading post on Great Slave 
lake, but at least a trial would have been made. 
It is impossible to give in this report more than a mention of 
the numerous searching expeditions, and a brief summary of the 
geographical work accomplished by them. 
1847-50-sir John Richardson and Dr. Rae, overland, and 
along the coast in boats from the mouth of the Mackenzie tc 
that of the Coppermine. 
1848-50-captain Thomas Moore, of H.M.S. Plover, and 
