576 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



officers and fifteen men. The crews of both vessels, all told, 

 originally numbered 129 souls. McClintock's discoveries finally 

 decided the fate of the Franklin Expedition. 



Dr. Isaac I. Hayes, a member of Dr. Kane's party, and an 

 enthusiastic believer in the existence of an open polar sea, 

 succeeded, by the aid of private subscriptions, in organizing an 

 exploring party of fourteen men, with whom he embarked in the 

 schooner United /States, from Boston, July 6, 1860. Hayes 

 entered Baffin Bay, August 20, and added to his crew three 

 Danes, and three Esquimaux hunters, and secured sledge dogs 

 for the winter's work. He harbored at Port Foulke, and during 

 the winter made several sledge journeys northward. April 3, 

 1861, he reached lat. 81 35', long. 70 30', beyond which the ice 

 was so rotten as to make further progress impossible. This was 

 the most northerly point that had ever been reached, and from a 

 lofty headland he looked out upon what he believed was an open 

 polar sea. Having no boat he was obliged to return, and as his 

 vessel was already becoming badly broken by the ice he had to 

 make his way back to Boston, where he arrived in October, 

 1861. 



In' 1860 Capt. Charles F. Hall left New London, Connecticut, 

 in a whale ship, which landed him on the west coast of Davis 

 Strait. From thence he prosecuted a search for the remains of 

 the Franklin party in sledges. He found no trace of them, how- 

 ever, though he did discover relics of the Frobisher expedition, 

 made 300 years before. Hall returned to the United States 

 September 30th, but in 1864 he again sailed for the arctic regions 

 with only two Esquimaux companions. He landed on the coast 

 of Hudson Bay and thence journeyed to King William Land, 

 where he found many relics of the Franklin party, and from a 

 number of Esquimaux obtained indisputable evidence that the 

 explorers had died of starvation, but not until they had accom- 

 plished the northwest passage. Capt. Hall spent five years 

 among the Esquimaux, learning their language and acclimating 

 himself to the arctic regions, and then returned to the United 

 States in 1869 to organize another expedition. 



