498 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



BETUBW OF AlSr ARCTIC EXPLOKBR. 



The barque George Henry, Capt. Buddington, 

 arrived at New London, Conn., early on the morn- 

 ing of the i;3th inst., having on board Mr. C. F. 

 Hall, the Arctic explorer, whose history of his ex- 

 pedition is very interesting. We find the follow- 

 ing statement in the correspondence of the N. Y. 

 Herald : 



He arrived in the Arctic regions late in 1860, 

 and, as the seas were so free from ice, he was very 

 anxious to proceed immediately with his mission ; 

 but, notwithstanding the bright aspect of affairs, 

 he M isoly took the counsel of the Esquimaux, who 

 would not consent to make up a boat party for 

 the purpose of prosecuting the work. 



The intervening time was occupied in learning 

 the Innuit or Esquimaux language from the na- 

 tives, whom, by their contact with the whalemen, 

 he was enabled soon to understand and be under- 

 by stood. In the matters of clothing and food Mr. 

 Hall adopted the Lmuit style, and was dressed in 

 skins and fed upon raw meats, with a due share 

 of blubber. 



During the long and weary winter months Mr. 

 Hall was not idle, for with his boat he settled the 

 fact that Frobisher's Strait was only a deep in- 

 dentation or bay. On the 21st of August, 18G1, 

 he stood on the high land at the northern shore, 

 and saw the whole sweep of land around the bay. 

 On the 27th of September, 1861, the frail boat 

 upon which he so much depended, was totally 

 lost. Fortunately at the time two English whalers 

 were in a bay — longitude 62 degrees 52 mkiutes 

 west — and Captain Parker, who commanded one 

 of them, i)romised Mr. Hall a boat, which he was 

 to leave at a designated place for his use. By 

 some means the Englishman did not leave the 

 boat, and Mr. Hall says he thinks the ships were 

 blown out of the bay ; and yet he is anxious to 

 hear the true history of the case. The cause of 

 humanity demands an explanation also. 



Mr. Hall returned to the George Henry, and 

 learned that the schooner Rescue or 'Amaret,' a 

 tender to the barque, had been lost in the gale of 

 the 27th September. In reference to Frobisher's 

 discoveries, it apjjears that the ancient navigator 

 and explorer entered this bay, and finding that his 

 progress was impeded by fixed ice, supposed that 

 it must be an open strait frozen over, and the 

 British government has never since pushed itvS 

 further exploration. The lay of the land is very 

 different from the lines laid down upon the charts 

 now in use. This fact is and has been known by 

 the M'halemen who frequent its locality ; but they 

 supposed it to be a strait. But no official change 

 has been made by any government. 



Mr. Hall has a very large and carefully pre- 

 pared chart of this bay, and will in due time pub- 

 lish it to the world, Ijut at the present time he 

 deems it proper to withhold its features. 



In 18(51 his explorations were renewed with en- 

 ergy. He had become acclimated, and was fully 

 alive to the amount of work which was before 

 him. A whaleboat was now procured from the 

 George Henry, and with a crew of six Iinmits, 

 mtale and female, he started on his northern jour- 

 ney. The natives take their families with them 

 when on these expeditions, and the women pull an 

 oar with the men. Dogs are also of the compa- 



ny, and several native boats are taken for the pur- 

 pose of hunting and fishing with. Thus provided 

 with personnel and materitl they started, living 

 on prepared food in small quanties, but mainly 

 depending upon the game captured on the way. 



ISIr. Hall went to Countess of Warwick Sound, 

 and after much difficulty succeeded in discovering 

 the place where Frobisher attempted to plant a 

 colony. A considerable time was spent here in 

 obtaining relics of that ill-fated colony. At near- 

 ly every ])lace of their debarkation relics were 

 found consisting of pieces of coal, brick, wood, 

 and a portion of a cannon shot, which might have 

 been used as boat ballast. 



The coal had been overgrown with moss, and a 

 dark vegetable growth ; the brick looked quite 

 fresh and new, the wood Avas simply chips, which, 

 although embedded in the coal dust for nearly 

 three hundred years, are well preserved. The 

 piece of iron is well worn with the rust of so many 

 years. 



One of the most palpable facts in connection 

 with the discovery of these people of "ye olden 

 time" is that Mr. Hall discovered a trench twenty 

 feet deep and one hundred feet long, a species of 

 dry dock, leading down to the water. In this ex- 

 cavation the party of Frobisher's men who were 

 captured by the Esquimaux on his first voyage, 

 with the assistance of some of their captors, built 

 a small vessel, in which they were to embark and 

 sail for England. In due time she was completed 

 and put to sea, but heavy weather coming on, and 

 their vessel proving unseaworthy, thej' were soon 

 obliged to return. All of this crew were severely 

 frost-bitten. Despairing of ever reaching their 

 native land, and being severely frost-bitten, the 

 captives soon died. 



The facts of their mode of living and attempts 

 to reach England were gathered from the Innuits. 

 Mr. Hall says that the traditional histories are re- 

 markably clear and explicit, and can be relied on 

 to the greatest extent ; and I believe that those 

 who have been familiar with this class of people 

 coincide in the same opinion. 



The information respecting the fate of two of 

 the boats' crews of Sir John Franklin's expedition 

 is not yet as clear as could be desired. The facts 

 are these : 



While on one of his sledge journeys in 1861 — 

 for lie has made several — a ]xu'ty of strange In- 

 nuits came to his stopping-place, and from them 

 he learned that three years ago two boats' crews 

 came down Hudson's Straits, bound through the 

 straits. These men, "cudlemas" or white men, 

 stopped on one of the Lower Savage Islands 

 (which lie near the mainland on the north side of 

 lludson's Straits,) and here they left what the In- 

 dians called "soft stones." One of the natives who 

 knew the use of firearms, saw the "soft stones" and 

 pronounced them to be leaden bullets. All traces 

 of these men were subsequently lost, and Mr. 

 Hall, not knowing that the Kitty, a Hudson's 

 Bay Company ship, had been lost there five years 

 previously, supposed these two boats' crews to be 

 a portion of the Sn- John Franklin expedition, 

 from the fact that that regretted explorer, not 

 knowing how long he might be detained in the 

 ice, had laid in a very large supply of ammunition 

 and leaden bullets, and that quantities had been 

 taken in the boats when they left the larger ves- 

 sels ; and in their endeavors to get through Hud- 



