Early Naturalists 37 



hunger." Living largely on lichens, they were fortunate 

 enough to kill a musk ox on the tenth. ' ' To skin and cut up 

 the animal was the work of a few minutes. The contents of 

 its stomach were devoured upon the spot; raw intestines which 

 were next attacked, were pronounced by the most delicate 

 amongst us to be excellent." Finally when Fort Enterprise 

 was reached it was found deserted and provisionless ! Here 

 Franklin and his men spent several weeks awaiting succor 

 from Fort Providence, to which a few of the party had pushed 

 on for help ; subsisting meantime on lichens, and bits of skin 

 and bones from the refuse heaps of the preceding winter. 

 They were so weak that even when game appeared, none of 

 them were able to go after it. "We saw," continues Franklin, 

 "a herd of reindeer sporting on the river, about half a mile 

 from the house ; they remained there a long time, but none of 

 the party felt themselves strong enough to go after them, nor 

 was there one of us who could have fired a gun without 

 resting it. " *^ Finally, early in November, relief came from 

 Fort Providence, enabling the party to reach Fort Chipewyan, 

 where they wintered, returning to York Factory the following 

 summer. Such were the surroundings, and such the men, in 

 which, and by whom American biology was made. 



Richardson also accompanied Franklin on a subsequent 

 expedition in 1825, together with Drummond, another nat- 

 uralist, to Great Bear Lake and down the ^Mackenzie River 

 to its mouth, whence one party under Franklin explored the 

 coast to the westward, while another under Richardson went 

 some nine hundred miles eastward. In 1848-9 Richardson 

 was in charge of one of the expeditions sent in search of 

 Franklin, who never returned from his fateful voyage of 1845. 

 In the course of this search he further explored the coast 

 between the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers. 



The natural history results of Richardson's explorations 

 were embodied in liis vohimes of the "Fauna boreali- Ameri- 

 cana," published with tlie assistance of the ornithologist, 

 Swainson, and the entomologist, Kirby. 



Beginning with 1830 and for many years subse(iuent 

 thereto, different states organized surveys of their natural 

 resources. Of still greater value, however, to natural science 

 were the various government surveys leading up to the Pacific 

 Railroad Surveys and those of the territories, and finally 

 culminating in 1879 in the establishment of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, 



"Quoted from Wright, "The Great Wliite Nortli," \>\>. Sd-S, l)y jicr- 

 mission of the Maemillan Company. 



