252 SCIENTIFIC APPARATUS. 







discovered Wollaston and Victoria lands in 1839. Two attempts 

 were made to reach Repulse Bay in ships. Captain Lyon, in the 

 Griper, tried it in 1824, by Roe's Welcome, and returned the 

 same season. In 1836 Captain Back made the attempt by Frozen 

 Strait, but was forced to winter in the pack, and crossed the 

 Atlantic in 1837 w i tn m ' s sm *P> tne Terror, in a sinking state. 



14. During the previous decade the Russians were actively 

 engaged ia exploring work. Most of the north coast of 

 Siberia had been gradually examined during the previous 

 century, and the New Siberia Islands were discovered in 1770. 

 But in 1821, Lieutenant Anjou of the Russian Navy undertook 

 their exploration, and he completed a survey of that interesting 

 group. At the same period, Baron Wrangell, from 1820 to 1823, 

 made four journeys on the Polar Sea from Nijni Kolymsk, in 

 dog sledges, exploring the coast from the mouth of the Kolyma 

 to Cape Chelagskoi. Here Wrangell heard of snow-covered 

 mountains visible over the sea to the northward the land after- 

 wards discovered by Captain Kellett, and subsequently seen by 

 Captain Long. Another Russian expedition was undertaken, in 

 1843, by Middendorf, who descended the river Khantanga, and 

 sighted Cape Taimyr, getting a view of the Polar Sea. 



15. In 1845 the expedition of Sir John Franklin, to make the 

 North West Passage, was dispatched. Since 1818 immense 

 progress had been made, as will be seen by a careful comparison 

 of the chart of 1818 with that of 1845. The state of our know- 

 18, 19. Cir- ledge in the latter year was deeply impressed on many 

 cSt,i845. minds, for long and anxiously did we ponder over it, in 

 ik'.G.s.j? ' seeking earnestly to conjecture the direction Sir John 

 Franklin would have taken from the point of view of his actual 

 knowledge. In 1845 the whole coast of Arctic America had 



keen discovered from Icy Cape on the west to 



th chart 



Ca P e Herschel on Km g William Island, and the 



mouth of the Great Fish River of Back, on the east; 

 <R.G.S.) b ut - t was not k nown whether King William Land was 



