44 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



the magnetic needle was nearly vertical, being Sq'^ 59" — one minute 

 short of 90^'. The site was a low flat shore, rising into ridges from 

 fifty to sixty feet high, and about a mile inland. 



Contrary to the judgment of many officers of experience in polar 

 explorations, the last and most fatal of all the expeditions was 

 undertaken by Sir John Franklin, with 137 picked officers and men, 

 in the ships iErcbus and Terror. The adventurers left Sheerness on 

 the 26th of May, 1846, the ships having been strengthened in every 

 conceivable way, and found in everything calculated to secure the 

 safety of the expedition. On the 22nd of July the ships were spoken 

 by the whaler Enterprise, and, four days later, they were sighted by 

 the Prince of Wales., of Hull, moored to an iceberg, waiting an 

 opening to enter Lancaster Sound. There the veil drops over the 

 ships and their unhappy crews. In 1848 their fate began to excite a 

 lively interest in the public mind. Expedition in search of them 

 succeeded expedition, at immense cost, sent both by the English 

 and American authorities, and one by Lady Franklin herself, some of 

 which penetrated the Polar Seas through Behring's Straits, while the 

 majority took Baffin's Bay. In 1850, Captains Ommaneyand Penny 

 discovered, at the opening of Wellington Channel, some vestiges of 

 Franklin, which led to another expedition in 1857, which was got up 

 by private enterprise, and of which Captain Sir Leopold M'Clintock 

 had the command. Guided by the indications collected in the previous 

 expedition, and by intelligence gathered from the Esquimaux by 

 Dr. Rae in his land expedition. Captain M'Clintock, in the yacht 

 Fox, discovered, on the 6th of May, 1859, upon the north point of 

 King William's Land, a cairn or heap of stones. Several leaves of 

 parchment, which were buried under the stones, bearing date the 

 28th of May, 1848, solved the fatal enigma. The first, dated the 

 24th of May, 1847, gave some details, ending with "all well;" but 

 the papers had been dug up twelve months later to record the death 

 of Franklin, on the nth of June, 1S47. The survivors are supposed 

 to have been at this time on their way to the mouth of the River 

 Back ; but they must have sunk under the terrible hardships to which 

 they were exposed, in addition to cold and hunger. 



In September, 1859, Captain M'Clintock returned to England, 

 bringing with him many relics of our lost countrymen, found in the 

 country of their misfortunes. 



To go back to the period between 1848 and this latter period. 

 After the return of Captain M'Clintock, in 1850, Captain Sir R. 

 M'Clure, leaving Behring's Straits, discovered the north-west passage 



