200 General A.W.Greely — CoUinson's Arctic Journey. 



Parry, in his wonderful voyage to Winter harbor, traversed 

 only 30° of longitude from the opeii water of Lancaster sound, 

 but Collinson took his vessel nearly twice as far from the free 

 waters of Bering strait. It should be noted to CoUinson's credit 

 that the series of straits through which he tacked his vessel were 

 the worst that have ever been successfully navigated to a consid- 

 erable distance by any Arctic expedition, and that in addition 

 to his journey from Bering strait to Cambridge bay and return 

 he also carried the Eninyrise up McClure strait to as high a 

 23oint as was reached by the Investigator. In short, no other ves- 

 sel came so near completing the Northwest Passage as the Enter- 

 prise. 



The writer of the article referred to was not ignorant of CoUin- 

 son's journey, for on page 480 he refers to the fact that Collin- 

 son wintered at Camden bay in 1853-4. 



On the other hand, McClure never visited Herschel island. It 

 is not mentioned in any of his reports, and the track charts, both 

 in Armstrong's " NoTthwest Passage " and in Osborn's account of 

 McClure's voyage, show that the Investigator, under McClure, left 

 the American coast near Camden bay and steered northeastward 

 into the polar pack, into which the Investigator penetrated nearly 

 ninety miles from land. Obliged b}^ -the closing ice to turn back- 

 ward, McClure made Pelly island, on the eastern side of Mac- 

 kenzie river, thus making a long detour in which his nearest 

 approach to Herschel island was at a point about twenty-five 

 miles northeast of it. 



The records thus show that IVfcClure found an open sea from 

 point Barrow eastward in 1850, Collinson in 1851 and 1853, and 

 Stockton in 1889, while the American whalers came safely back 

 in 1890. In short, it may' be said that nearly every year the 

 Mackenzie may be reached by steam whalers, and that the ice 

 is neither eternal nor fixed along the shores of northern Alaska 

 and the Mackenzie River region. 



It appears to be a proper labor for the National Geographic 

 Society to favor the correction of errors relating to noted journeys 

 and ill known regions ; hence this attemj^t to do justice to Col- 

 linson and to correct the inferential error as to the Mackenzie 

 river which by a flight of fancy only, can be described as a land 

 '' Where the ice never melts." 



