14 THE OSPREY. 



In February 1814 he was appointed surgeon to the first battalion of 

 marine?, then in North America, and he was with Sir George CociibLirn at the 

 taking of Cumberland Island and of St. Mary's, Georgia, in 1825. He then 

 retired on half-pay, and returned to the university of Edinburgh, devoting 

 considerable attention to botany, and studying mineralogy under Jamieson. 

 He graduated M. D. in 1816 (his thesis dealing with yellow-fever), and he 

 then began, though with little success, to practise as a physician in Leith. 

 In 1818 Richardson married for the first time, and in 1819 he was apppointed 

 surgeon and naturalist to Franklin's polar expedition, being specially commis- 

 sioned to collect minerals, plants, and animals. This appointment introduced 

 him to Sir Joseph Banks, and through him to Dr. John Edward Gray. After 

 passing the winter of 1819 at Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan and 

 traversing one thousand three hundred and fifty miles during 1820, they win- 

 tered at Fort Enterprise, and in June 1821 started down the Coppermine 

 River in birch-bark canoes. They reached the coast on 18 July, and pene- 

 trated Bathurst's Inlet and Melville Sound as far east as Cape Turnagain 6^° 

 east of ihe river mouth. In the Barren Grounds they were reduced to great 

 straits, and Richardson was compelled in self-defence to shoot the Iroquois 

 voyageur Michel, who had murdered Robert Hood, a midshipman. On 7 Nov. 

 they wei'e rescued by the Indian Akaitcho, who brought them to Fort Prov- 

 idence. They reached Fort York in the following June, and arrived in 

 England in October 1822, having traversed while in America over five thous- 

 and five hundred and fifty miles. In the 'Narrative' of the journey, which 

 was published in 1823, and to which Richardson contributed notices of the fish 

 collected, geognostical observations, and remarks on the aurora, Franklin 

 writes: 'To Dr. Richardson the exclusive merit is due of whatever collections 

 and observations have been made in the department of natural history, and I 

 am indebted to him in no small degree for his friendly advice and assistance in 

 the preparation of the present narrative'. 



Having taken up his residence at Edinburgh, where he had as a near 

 neighbour and friend Francis Boott the botanist, Richardson next devoted 

 himself to describing the mammals and birds in the appendix to Parry's 

 'Journal' of his second voyage (1821-3), which was published in 1824. In the 

 same year Richardson was appointed surgeon to the Chatham division of the 

 marines. He was, however, allowed to accompany Franklin on his second ex- 

 pedition to the mouth of the Mackenzie in 1825, taking with him Thomas 

 Drummond as his assistant naturalist. After wintering at Fort Franklin on 

 Great Bear Lake, having left Drummond at Cumberland House on the Saska- 

 tchewan, he and Franklin separated on 4 July 1826, Richardson being sent 

 with eleven men to explore the nine hundred miles of coast from the Mac- 

 kenzie eastwards to the Coppermine River in the two boats Dolphin and Union. 



