xviii PREFACE. 



from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is by following, 

 as near as possible, the coast-line of North 

 America : indeed, it is his opinion, founded 

 upon a large experience, that no passage by 

 a ship can ever be accomplished in a more 

 northern direction. This it is well known was 

 the favourite theory of Franklin, who had him- 

 self, along with Richardson, Back, Beechey, 

 Dease, Simpson, and Rae, surveyed the whole 

 of that same North American coast from the 

 Back or Great Fish River to Behring Strait. 

 Thus, when Franklin sailed in 1845, the dis- 

 covery of a North- West Passage was reduced 

 to the finding a link between the latter survey 

 and the discoveries of Parry, who had already, 

 to his great renown, opened the first half of a 

 more northern course from east to west, when 

 he was arrested by the impenetrable ice-barrier 

 at Melville Island. 



And here it is to be remembered, that the 

 tract in which the record and the relics have 

 been found, is just that to which Lady Franklin 

 herself specially directed Kenedy, the com- 

 mander of the ' Prince Albert,' in her second 

 private expedition in 1852 ; and had that in- 

 trepid explorer not been induced to search 

 northwards of Bellot Strait, but had felt him- 

 self able to follow the course indicated by his 



