382 FRANKLIN'S LAST AND FATAL EXPEDITION— IS^b. 



abandoned on the shores of Boothia was a paddle-steamer, the steam- 

 machinery was defective from the beginning, and proved wholly useless 

 among the ice. Finally, this most unfortunate enterprise called forth 

 numerous search expeditions, which, going north on the track of Franklin, 

 formed the school in which the explorers of the last and of the present 

 generation were trained — in which Captain Nares, who now leads the latest 

 and the greatest of all British expeditions along the shores of Smith's 

 Sound toward the North Pole, obtained that experience of Arctic navigation 

 which so well qualifies him for his present undertaking. 



After the return of Captain Back from his unavailing and disastrous 

 attempt to reach Kepulse Bay in the " Terror " (1836-37), the Admiralty 

 seem to have been discouraged in their desire to prosecute discovery in the 

 Polar seas, and to have regarded the Antarctic regions as a more promising 

 field for exploration. The " Terror " was accordingly repaired, strengthened 

 with a doublet of exterior planking, and, together with the "Erebus," a 

 bomb-vessel of 370 tons measurement, placed under the command of Sir 

 James C. Ross, and commissioned in 1839 for a voyage of discovery toward 

 the South Pole. This voyage was successfully completed in 1843, and again 

 the two good vessels were riding at anchor in the Thames off" Woolwich. 

 Meantime considerable impetus had been given to Arctic enterprise by the 

 signal success of Dease and Simpson, who, acting under the commission of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company, had succeeded in discovering and surveying 

 the previously unknown tracts of the shores of the Polar Sea from Behring 

 Strait eastward to the mouth of Back's Great Fish Eiver, and still farther 

 north-eastward to Cape Britannia, opposite the south-east promontory of 

 King William Land. More than this, the Company had projected another 

 expedition, to be undertaken in 1840 by Simpson, for the purpose of tracing 

 the shores of North America eastward (by the supposed strait which was 

 then believed by many to insulate Boothia) round the shores of Boothia 

 Gulf to Fury and Hecla Strait — thus completing the passage between the 

 Pacific and Atlantic. The untimely and melancholy fate of Simpson pre- 

 vented the Company from carrying out this project. But the idea they had 

 suggested was not lost sight of; and when in 1843 the "Erebus" and 

 " Terror " returned safe and sound after a cruise in South Polar seas, in 

 which many surprising discoveries had been made, -the public mind, stimu- 

 lated by the late successes, and again reverting, as it always had done for 

 centuries, to the unknown North, appears to have soon decided that these 

 well-tried ships would be best employed on another voyage to discover the 

 North- West Passage. This object, however visionary it may have been 

 regarded in earlier times, seemed now to be within the easy compass of 

 naval enterprise. "Ships are but wood, sailors but men," the sceptics 

 might have argued ; but the ships could now be fitted with efiicient steam 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



