344 Miscellanea. 
numerous deep bays or inlets of Baffin’s Bay. Not pretending to form a 
definite opinion on either of these hypotheses, I will only say that the 
barest possibility of these ships having been the Hrebus and Terror (and 
some naval men believe it to be possible) is a strong reason for renewed 
exertion to discover our absent friends or their relics in the lands to which 
they may have repaired.* Even if it be supposed that the ships were ordi- 
nary whalers, still the fate of their crews ought if possible to be ascertained. 
In the idea that any of our countrymen (if only the most active portion 
of them) may have been eking out an existence in polar lands, cut off from 
all intercourse with civilized men, we have indeed redoubled cause to make 
fresh efforts to exhaust the survey, and to leave no chance untried. For, 
when such good Arctic naturalists as Richardson and Scoresby, such an able 
seaman as Kellett, and such a practical explorer of snow-clad lands as Rae, 
coincide in the belief, that animal food sufficient to sustain life may have 
' been found, why are we not to indulge in the hope, that some of our long- 
absent friends may yet be alive, and even in a latitude as far north as 
that of Spitzbergen, in which the Russian sailors of the last century lived, 
and whence three out of four were brought home in perfect health after an 
exile of more than six years ? 
On this subject, however, it is my duty to look also at the other side of 
the prospect, and state that some Arctic authorities entertain a different 
opinion, From Captain Ommanney, for example, to whom we are indebted 
for the delineation of a new coast-line to the south of Cape Walker, and an 
instructive descriptive memoir,} we learn that the lands which he traversed 
are very sterile, and afford little animal sustenance. On the other hand, it 
is clear, from the testimony of many explorers, that animals do abound in 
much higher latitudes than those explored by that officer; and it is well to 
reflect that this unequal distribution of the means of supporting life is coinci- 
dent with the direction of the isothermal lines, as exhibited on the little 
map of Mr. Petermann. The last-mentioned gentleman and Mr. P. L. 
Simmonds have collected and brought before you valuable testimony to sus- 
tain the hope, that human beings may live formany years on the natural 
resources of parts of the Arctic regions. But here again we must fence round 
this bright prospect with all the conditions of the problem, and not be over 
sanguine. For, whilst we have a right to hope that our absent friends may, 
like the Russian sailors, have found another Spitzbergen, it must also be 
admitted, that they may have been compelled to take refuge on coasts where 
few animals, save seals, could be procured, whence the birds so numerous 
in summer would migrate during the long season of darkness and cold; and 
that under such untoward conditions, their energies possibly paralyzed by 
* It has been recently stated that the ships seen from the Renovation 
were not housed in, as at first reported, and were not therefore in all 
probability Franklin’s ships; but it must be recollected that the same party 
which took away the sails would also carry the “housing” ashore for pur- 
poses of shelter. 
* Captain Ommanney’s Memoir has not yet, I regret to say, been sent in 
for publication. 
