ARCTIC MAPS. 257 



the spring of 1851, sledge parties examined part of the 

 northern side of Prince Albert Land. During the summer the 

 Investigator returned to the south point of Banks Island, and 

 then made her way to the northward between the tremendous ice 

 floes and the land, finally reaching the Bay of God's Mercy on 

 the northern coast, beyond which point the gallant ship was 

 20. Charts never destined to move. M'Clure, his officers, and men, 

 isiand" k MS. walked over the ice to the Resolute at Melville Island, 

 and, returning by Baffin's Bay, were the first to make 

 the North-West Passage, in 1854. 



25. Meanwhile, in 1851, Captain Collinson in the Enterprise 

 also sailed up the Prince of Wales Strait, returning to winter at 

 its southern entrance. In 1852 a party from the Enterprise 

 reached Melville Island, and thus also discovered a North-West 

 Passage, by connecting Parry's discoveries with those from 

 Behring Strait. The Enterprise then went eastward along the 

 coast of Arctic America, through Dolphin and Union and Dease 

 Straits, and wintered in Cambridge Bay, on the coast of Victoria 

 Land. Captain Collinson, in May, 1853, made a sledge journey 

 still further east, until he reached within a few miles of the posi- 

 tion where the Erebus and Terror were abandoned. The Enter- 

 prise was forced to pass a third Arctic winter in Camden Bay, 

 east of Point Barrow, and returned home in 1854. 



26. The news that Eskimos had tidings of Sir John Frank- 

 lin's expedition on King William Island, and at the mouth of the 

 Great Fish River, led to the despatch of the Fox, under the com- 

 mand of Captain M'Clintock, with the object of finally discover- 

 ing its fate, and clearing up the mystery which surrounded it. 

 M'Clintock was accompanied by Captain Allen Young. The 

 Fox wintered just to the north of the eastern entrance of Bellot 

 Strait in 1858-59, and in the spring of 1859 M'Clintock's great 

 achievement was completed by the discovery of the document 

 which told the sad story of the fate of the Erebus and Terror. 

 M''Clintock himself made the circuit of King Williarp Island, 



s 



