SCHWATKAS FRANKLIN SEARCH EXPEDITION. 467 
danger and hardship are of no avail. Only when the Polar seas and lands are 
mapped, and all their pitfalls numbered and banked up, American sailors will 
cease from importuning native millionaires to dispatch them northward, and 
English sailors from fretting at Lords of the Admiralty for economizing seaman’s 
lives. Huge as are the ramparts to be assaulted, and obstinate as are Arctic ele- 
ments in repairing the slightest breaches ever made, that period will arrive at last. 
By that time also new perils at least as apparently insurmountable will have been 
discovered elsewhere to tempt and recompense nautical audacity.— London Times, 
September 25th, 1880. 
RETURN OF LIEUTENANT SCHWATKA’S FRANKLIN SEARCH EX- 
PEDITION. 
The members of the Franklin search party, under the command of Lieuten- 
ant Frederick Schwatka, United States Army, reached New Bedford, Mass. Sep- 
tember 22, 1880, having been picked up by Captain Michael Baker, of the bark 
George and Mary, of New Bedford, at Depot Island, on the 1st of August, they 
having returned to that point from their sledge journey to King William Land on 
the 4th of March of the present year. The sledge journey was the longest ever 
made through the unexplored Arctic region, both as to the time and distance, the 
party having been absent from their base of operations in Hudson Bay, eleven 
months and four days. During that time they traveled 2,819 geographical, or 
3,251 statute miles. It was the only sledge journey ever made, that covered an 
entire Arctic winter. 
During the summer and fall of 1879 they made a complete search of King 
William Land and the adjacent mainland, traveling over the route pursued by the 
crews of the Erebus and Terror upon their retreat toward Back’s River, and while 
so engaged the party buried the bones of all those unfortunates remaining above 
ground and erected monuments to the memory of the fallen heroes. Their re- 
search established the mournful fact that the records of Franklin’s expedition are 
lost beyond recovery. 
The Natchilli Esquimaux, who had found a sealed tin box about two feet long 
and one foot square, filled with books, at a point on the mainland near Backs. 
River, where the last of the survivors of Franklin’s party are supposed to have 
finally perished, were interviewed by Lieutenant Schwatka. ‘These natives broke 
open the box and threw out the precious records, which were then either scattered 
to the winds of thirty Arctic winters, or destroyed by the children, who took them ~ 
to their tents for playthings. This point was not only searched by Lieutenant 
Schwatka’s party, but by nearly the entire Natchilli nation, inspired by a promise 
of a great reward for the discovery of any remnant of books or papers no matter 
_ what was their present condition. This search failed to discover any of the records. 
but resulted in the finding of a skeleton of a sailor about five miles inland. Its 
existence was previously unknown, even to local tribes. Every native who could. 
