278 SIMPSON'S CAIKN. . Chap. XIV. 



from it, and on which there was consider- 

 able ice pressure and a few hummocks heaped 

 up, the first we had seen for three weeks. 

 Close round this point, or by cutting across 

 it as we did, the retreating parties must 

 have passed; and the opportunity afforded 

 by the cairn of depositing in a known posi- 

 tion — and that, too, where their own dis- 

 coveries terminated — some record of their own 

 proceedings, or, it might be, a portion of their 

 scientific journals, would scarcely have been 

 disregarded. 



Simpson makes no mention of having left a 

 record in this cairn, nor would Franklin's 

 people have taken any trouble to find it if 

 he had left one ; but what now remained of 

 this once " ponderous cairn " was only four feet 

 high ; the south side had been pulled down and 

 the central stones removed, as if by persons 

 seeking for something deposited beneath. After 

 removing the snow with which it was filled, 

 and a few loose stones, the men laid bare a 

 large slab of limestone : with difficulty this was 

 removed, then a second, and also a third slab, 

 when they came to the ground. For some 

 time we persevered with a pickaxe in breaking 

 up the frozen earth, but nothing whatever 

 was found, nor any trace of European visitors 



