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This 1821 engraving shows John Franl^lin 

 and his party on an inland expedition 

 crossing the ice of Point Lal<e, Canada. 



The globe shows routes followed by Sir 

 James Clark Ross during his three Antarctic 

 voyages. (See key for details of each voyage.) 



this as King William Land, not King William Island. In all good 

 faith he had shown it Linked to the North American mainland by an 

 isthmus. But there was a narrow and navigable channel where the 

 isthmus was supposed to lie. Had Frankhn chosen this route he 

 might very well have found his way into the waters of the Pacific, 

 but he chose another one, and with fatal results. Both Erebus and 

 Terror were caught in the main Arctic pack ice, were beset, and 

 never got free. When the crew came to open their vast stock of 

 tinned foods they had the horror of finding that half of it was 

 putrid. Food poisoning and scurvy claimed their victims. Painfully 

 dragging the ships' boats down the shores of King WilHam Island, 

 105 men made a bid for escape to the mainland and possible rescue. 

 Their route was marked by abandoned suppUes and the skeletons 

 of the dead. A few did Hve to see the channel that could have saved 

 the ships — the last obstacle in the Northwest Passage — but their's 

 was a hollow victory. Not one man survived to teU the tale. 



Franklin had sailed in 1845. Not until nearly three years later, 

 a normal waiting period for such an expedition, did the government 

 take action. During the next ten years no less than forty search 

 parties set out to find the missing men. The first of these was a 

 three-pronged action — an expedition by land to the Arctic coast of 

 North America, one by sea to Bering Strait in hopes of greeting 

 Franklin as he completed the Northwest Passage, and another by 

 sea to follow the route taken by FrankHn. Ross left the comfort of 

 retirement to take command of this last party. With him in the 

 Enterprise was the young lieutenant (later Sir) Francis Leopold 

 McClintock, who eventually solved the mystery of Franklin's 

 missing ships. 



Ross' orders were to search by boat and sledge from bases on 

 North Somerset Island and Melville Island. When he reached 

 Barrow Strait he found it blocked with ice so he concentrated his 

 search on North Somerset Island. Ross and McClintock sledged 

 over 250 miles along the north and west coasts, but found nothing. 

 Before he abandoned the search he hit on an ingenious method of 

 conveying news to the missing men. To several foxes he had caught 

 he clipped copper collars engraved with the position of the rescue 

 ships and food caches. His hope was that the crews of Erebus and 

 Terror would capture the foxes for food and find the glad tidings. 

 Ross had intended to stay out a second winter, but ice conditions 

 were so bad that he was forced to return in September 1849. The 

 Admiralty then decided to divert the search in different directions. 

 If only they had continued Ross' sledge route along Boothia's west 

 coast the mystery might have been solved earlier. This was Sir 

 James Clark Ross' last voyage. He died at the age of sixty-two, on 

 April 3, 1862. 



The story of Ross' Arctic and Antarctic adventures leaves no 

 doubt about his fearlessness, resolution, and ability. As an ice 

 navigator he had a supreme record, and his approach to scientific 

 matters was painstaking and thorough. During his Antarctic expedi- 

 tions, he would not hesitate to go off course for the sake of making 

 weather observations or deep-sea soundings. He came closest to 

 Cook in his regard for the welfare and health of his officers and 

 men. His geographical discoveries were of tremendous significance, 

 opening the road to the Antarctic and preparing the way for the 

 discoveries seventy years later of Scott, Shackleton, and Amimdsen. 



54 



