44 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
the magnetic needle was nearly vertical, being 89° 59’—one minute 
short of 90°. The site was a low flat shore, rising into ridges from 
fifty to sixty feet high, and about a mile inland. 
Contrary to the judgment of many officers of experience in polar 
explorations, the last and most fatal of all the expeditions was 
undertaken by Sir John Franklin, with 137 picked officers and men, 
in the ships Zvebus and Terror. The adventurers left Sheerness on 
the 26th of May, 1846, the ships having been strengthened in every 
conceivable way, and found in everything calculated to secure the 
safety of the expedition. On the 22nd of July the ships were spoken 
by the whaler Zxderprise, and, four days later, they were sighted by 
the Prince of Wales, of Hull, moored to an iceberg, waiting an 
opening to enter Lancaster Sound. ‘There the veil drops over the 
ships and their unhappy crews. In 1848 their fate began to excite a 
lively interest in the public mind. Expedition in search of them 
succeeded expedition, at immense cost, sent both by the English 
and American authorities, and one by Lady Franklin herself, some of 
which penetrated the Polar Seas through Behring’s Straits, while the 
majority took Baffin’s Bay. In 1850, Captains Ommaney and Penny 
discovered, at the opening of Wellington Channel, some vestiges of 
Franklin, which led to another expedition in 1857, which was got up 
by private enterprise, and of which Captain Sir Leopold M‘Clintock 
had the command. Guided by the indications collected in the previous 
expedition, and by intelligence gathered from the Esquimaux by 
Dr. Rae in his land expedition, Captain M‘Clintock, in the yacht 
fox, discovered, on the 6th of May, 1859, upon the north point of 
King William’s Land, a cairn or heap of stones. Several leaves of 
parchment, which were buried under the stones, bearing date the 
28th of May, 1848, solved the fatal enigma. The first, dated the 
24th of May, 1847, gave some details, ending with “all well ;” but 
the papers had been dug up twelve months later to record the death 
of Franklin, on the 11th of June, 1847. The survivors are supposed 
to have been at this time on their way to the mouth of the River 
Back ; but they must have sunk under the terrible hardships to which 
they were exposed, in addition to cold and hunger. 
In September, 1859, Captain M‘Clintock returned to England, 
bringing with him many relics of our lost countrymen, found in the 
country of their misfortunes. 
To go back to the period between 1848 and this latter period. 
After the return of Captain M‘Clintock, in 1850, Captain Sir R. 
M‘Clure, leaving Behring’s Straits, discovered the north-west passage 
