SCHWATKAS ARCTIC SEARCH. 415 
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Indians. In this contrast lies an important secret that should be kept in view in 
all future Arctic operations. 
‘‘After reaching from Hudson’s Bay, his destination on King William’s Land 
where Franklin’s party were known to have perished, the shore was minutely ex- 
amined by Lt. Schwatka, where the Erebus and Terror remained from September 
1846, until abandoned in April, 1848, and how much longer it is not possible to 
say precisely, though the correspondent recounts some now newly-discovered facts 
that bear on that point. On one of the ships there beset Sir John Franklin died 
in June, 1847, and in the weary eighteen months of icy desolation through which 
the ships were there held immovable the patience and hope of all on board gave 
way, until they were tempted to abandon the yet sound and well-provided ships 
and try a desperate homeward adventure by boat and sledge. They had actually 
made the discovery of the Northwest Passage; their ships were in a channel which 
when open was continuous from Behring’s strait ; but they had lost hope and heart 
and wandered away from their wooden walls to perish miserably on the shore. 
‘From an old Esquimau, of 65 or 70 years of age, the explorer obtained a 
clear account of the fate of at least one of the ships. This native reports his en- 
counter with a party of white men, who were apparently of the Franklin expedi- 
tion, and his subsequent visit to a ship frozen in the ice five miles west of Grant 
Point. She was watched for awhile, it appears, and no one was seen near her, 
and as the Esquimaux saw no signs of life they ventured near. They found one 
dead man in a bunk—the second time the speaker had seen a white man. ‘They 
used to go on board to steal small articles. Not knowing how to get down below 
they cut a hole in the side of the ship on a level with the ice, and through this the 
water got in the next summer and sent her to the bottom. That must have been 
the summer of 1848. In that year, therefore, within a few months after Frank- 
lin’s men had abandoned the ships, the ice around them broke up. 
‘¢The correspondent writing up the history of the journey states that during 
the. year 2,819 geographical miles, or 3,251 statute miles were traveled, for the 
most part over unexplored territory, constituting the longest sledge journey ever 
made, both as to time and distance. Indeed the journey stands conspicuous as 
the only one ever made through the entire course of an Arctic winter. The party 
successfully withstood the lowest temperature ever experienced by white men in 
the field, recording one observation of 71 degrees Fh.; 16 days whose average 
was 100 degrees below the freezing point, and 17 days which registered 60 
degrees Fh., during most of which the party traveled. In fact there was a halt 
of only one day on account of the cold. 
“Tt is claimed for this expedition that it was the first to make a summer 
search over the route of the lost crews of the Erebus and Terror, and while doing 
so buried the remains of every member of that fated party found above ground. 
The search, it is considered, has established the fact that the Franklin records 
have been irrecoverably lost at the boat place in Starvation cove. “The search for 
relics of Sir John Franklin’s party had one negative result of great importance, as 
