VI 



son in 1848 in search for Sir J. Franklin, during which the whole 

 coast was explored that lay between the mouths of the Mackenzie and 

 the Coppermine Rivers. (3) In 1851, at the request of Government, 

 he explored and mapped, with the slenderest outfit, 700 miles of the 

 south coast of Wollaston Land and Victoria Land, still in search of 

 Sir J. Franklin, for which achievement he received the gold medal of 

 the Geographical Society. Its result was greatly to narrow the range 

 of possibilities as to the locality of the missing expedition. (4) He 

 took charge of a boat expedition, proved the insular character of 

 King William's Land, and came at last upon relics of Franklin's party 

 and received verbal information from the Eskimo that gave the first 

 definite information as to their fate. The disaster occurred at the 

 mouth of the Back River, a little more than 200 miles in a direct line 

 from the place where he heard of it. For this achievement he 

 received the promised grant of 10,000 from Government. He did 

 not visit the spot himself, but his information as to the site and the 

 completeness of the disaster, was soon abundantly confirmed. After 

 this he made some further travel of interest, though by no means of 

 the importance of the above, surveying a route for a telegraph line 

 across Iceland and in North America. 



This bald statement of itineraries will give but a poor idea, except 

 to Arctic travellers, of the severity of the work accomplished. To 

 supply the deficiency, the following quotation is given from the 

 address of Sir R. Murchison when presenting the Gold Medal to 

 Dr. Rae; his remarks chiefly referring to the journeys numbered 

 above as (1) and (3). 



" With a boldness never surpassed, he (Dr. Rae) determined on 

 wintering on the proverbially desolate shores of Repulse Bay, where, 

 or in the immediate neighbourhood, one expedition of two ships had 

 previously wholly perished, and two others were all but lost. There 

 he maintained his party on deer shot principally by himself, and spent 

 ten months of an Arctic winter in a hut of stones, the locality not 

 even yielding drift timber. With no other fuel than a kind of hay 

 made of the Andromeda tetr<tgona, he preserved his men in health, and 

 thus enabled them to execute their arduous surveying journeys of 

 upwards of 1,000 miles round Committee Bay (the southern portion 

 of Boothia Gulf) in the spring. Next season he brought his party 

 back to the Hudson Bay posts in better working condition than wlier 

 he set out, and with but a small diminution of the few bags of pro- 

 visions he had taken with him. 



" On his last journeys, in which he travelled more than 3,000 miles 

 in snow-shoes, Dr. Rae has shown equal judgment and perseverance. 

 Dreading, from his former experience, that the sea might be frozen, 

 he determined on a spring journey over the ice, and performed a most 

 extraordinary one. His last starting place at Fort Confidence on the 



