98 



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 llth 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 to 

 that of the Coppermine. 



1848-50 Captain Thomas Moore, of H.M.S. Plover, and 



