GEOGEAPHIOAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 18C9. 



287 



homeward, in the closing months of 1868, and 

 the full report of its discoveries conies into 

 1869. Our own gallant countryman, Captain 

 Powell, perilling his own life and the lives of 

 his companions for the sake of science, de- 

 scended the great canon of the Colorado River, 

 and explored for five hundred miles its dark 

 and terrible passages. 



Other hitherto unknown fields, in other 

 portions of the glohe, have heen visited, and 

 light thrown upon many dark places during 

 the year, so that, though it has not been one 

 marked by very great discoveries, yet the sum 

 total of human knowledge has been sensibly 

 increased. 



The number of martyrs to geographical 

 science has been less numerous than in former 

 years. Of Viscount Strangford's death, though 

 occurring during the earlier days of 1869, 

 mention was made in the volume of the Asr- 

 NTTAL CYCLOPAEDIA for 1868, and a more full 

 biographical sketch is given elsewhere in 

 the present volume (see STEANGFOBD, Vis- 

 count). Miss Tinne", a young lady of rank 

 from Holland, who had most heroically de- 

 voted herself to geographical exploration for 

 six or seven years past, first in the Nile explora- 

 tions (in which she lost her mother, her aunt, 

 and some of her travelling-companions), and 

 subsequently in the attempt to penetrate the 

 Soudan from Tripoli, was cruelly murdered on 

 the 1st of August by the Tiiaricks and Arabs 

 whom she had hired as attendants, near Taha- 

 ret on the Sahara Desert. The reports of 

 Dr. Livingstone's murder have been renewed 

 at several times during the past year, and 

 the long delay in his return, and the very 

 unsatisfactory advices received from him, have 

 given a certain currency to these reports. 

 The latest of them was that he had been 

 burned as a wizard, or poisoned, and his body 

 burned, at a point ninety-five days' journey 

 in the interior from St. Paul de Loando, 

 but when carefully scanned this story is seen 

 to be untruthful, inasmuch as the date when 

 it was told to the Portuguese trader who 

 reported it at St. Paul was from the 15th to 

 the 25th of June, 1868, as he says; but even if it 

 was June, 1869, it had occurred, his informant 

 said, some time before he left a town ninety- 

 five days' journey distant, so that nearly or 

 quite four months must have elapsed between 

 the time of the alleged murder and his report 

 of it, bringing it back to February, 1868, or 

 1869. But Sir Roderick Murchison had re- 

 ceived two letters from Dr. Livingstone, dated 

 since February, 1869, one of them bearing 

 date May 30, 1869. The story may, therefore, 

 be set down, like many of these stories, as a 

 fabrication of some of the Portuguese traders. 



1. We begin with our own explorers. Captain 

 C. F. Hall returned in September, 1869, from 

 a five-years' exploring tour in the Arctic re- 

 gions, mainly spent in the search after the re- 

 mains of Sir John Franklin's expedition. In this 

 research he had been remarkably successful ; 



having ascertained the localities in which the 

 different parties of that expedition perished, 

 learned where their vessels were, and obtained 

 about one hundred and fifty relics of the ill- 

 fated expedition. He ascertained the impor- 

 tant fact that, the same year that the Erebus 

 and Terror were abandoned, one of these ves- 

 sels made the great Northwest passage, having 

 five men on board, and the vessel was in per- 

 fect order when abandoned by the crew, and 

 found by the Esquimaux in the spring of 1849. 

 It had been frozen in near O'Reilly Island, 

 latitude 68 30' north, longitude 99 8' west. 

 The skeletons of Sir John Franklin's men were 

 scattered over King William's Land, and Cap- 

 tain Hall says that the Esquimaux of that re- 

 gion, who are very different in character and 

 disposition from those of Repulse Bay, refused 

 to give them any assistance, when they 

 were able to have saved their lives, and not 

 only suffered them to perish from starvation 

 and scurvy, but plundered them of every thing 

 that they could make use of, and suffered their 

 dogs to feed on their bodies after their death. 

 Captain Hall believes that the records of the 

 expedition are still in existence, and that they 

 are in a vault a little way inland or eastward 

 of Cape Victory. He was unable to reach 

 this point in consequence of a war between the 

 native tribes, but believes that they can be 

 recovered. Captain Hall made no attempt at 

 Polar discoveries, and indeed does not seem to 

 have gone above the parallel of 70 north lati- 

 tude, but he explored, pretty thoroughly, Mel- 

 ville Peninsula, the Fury and Hecla Straits, 

 Pelly Bay, Boothia Peninsula and Gulf, Nei- 

 tchille, and part of King William's Land, and 

 connected these with the explorations of his 

 previous expedition. Since his return he has 

 been engaged in the effort of persuading the 

 Government to undertake the expense of a 

 voyage of exploration to the North Pole di- 

 rect, which he believes that his long experience 

 in the Arctic regions has qualified him to lead. 

 Dr. 1. 1. Hayes, so well known as an Arctic ex- 

 plorer, made a short exploring trip to the Arctic 

 regions in the summer of 1869, preliminary to a 

 more extensive and protracted expediton which 

 he purposes to undertake in the summer of 1870. 

 In company with Mr. Bradford, the artist, and 

 a small corps of photographers, hunters, etc., 

 he sailed from St. John's, Newfoundland, July 

 3d in the screw-steamer Panther, chartered at 

 that port, and returned there September 28th. 

 In this twelve-weeks' trip they penetrated 

 as far north as latitude 75*, in the middle of 

 Melville Sound or Bay, and were in serious 

 peril of being nipped by the newly-fprming 

 ice in August. They ran down six polar bears, 

 driving them from ice-field to ice-field with 

 their powerful steamer, and finally capturing 

 them. Visiting Upernavik, the northernmost 

 settlement of Europeans in Greenland, latitude 

 72 40' N., they were very cordially received, 

 and Dr. Hayes made provision for the gather- 

 ing together there of dogs, furs, and hunters, 



