p THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 575 



crew at Upernavik, and with them reached New York in the fall 

 of 1855. In a scientific point of view Dr. Kane's voyage was the 

 most important one that had ever been made to the arctic 

 regions. 



In 1857 Lady Franklin resolved to send another vessel, at her 

 own expense, in quest of her lost husband. The screw steamer 

 Fox, formerly a pleasure yacht, was purchased and fitted up for 

 the purpose and the command given to Capt. Francis McClin- 

 tock. 



This steamer left Aberdeen, July 1st, for Lancaster Sound, 

 but she was caught in an ice pack, nearly opposite the channel 

 enterance to Baffin's Bay, and held for eight months. The mov- 

 ing pack had in the meantime carried her back a distance of 

 1395 miles southward. She was refitted at Holsteinborg and 

 started again, this time being unusually successful, for with 

 comparatively little trouble she reached Port Kennedy in Frank- 

 lin Strait, and there went into winter quarters. On March 1st 

 McClintock met a party of Esquimaux near Cape Victoria, who 

 told him that several years before two ships, with white crews, 

 had been crushed in the ice and sunk in deep water off the north- 

 west shore of King William Land. The crews went away to a 

 great river, where they all died of starvation. This was all he 

 could learn from them. McClintock then followed the south and 

 west coast of King William Land and found several traces of the 

 lost explorers near Cape Herschel. A skeleton, with European 

 clothing lying near by, was found, and a few miles further he 

 came upon a boat, fitted to a sledge, in wh?ch were two more 

 skeletons. Some remnants of tents, three small cairns and one 

 larger one was found. Displacing some stones of the larger one> 

 the first and only record of the unfortunate Franklin party was 

 found. It was only a bit of paper dated May 28, 1847, 

 announcing that all were well, and that a small party had four 

 days previously left the ships. On the margin of this slip was 

 another memorandum, written in a different hand, dated April 

 25, 1848, stating that Sir John Franklin had died June 11, 1847, 

 and that the total loss by death up to that time had been nine 



