SIR JAMES C. BOSS BAFFLED. 483 



pected to be able to navigate the narrow channels, and perhaps push as far 

 westward as Melville Island, on which, in the opinion of many, the lost 

 navigators might be frozen up. The closing in of the ice effectually pre- 

 vented Eoss from making use of his launch. An ingenious but not very 

 certain means of conveying to Franklin's party intelligence of the measures 

 which were being taken for their rescue occurred to some of the officers of 

 the searching ships. During the winter a number of white foxes were taken 

 in traps. Around the necks of these, copper collars, on which intimations 

 of the position of the searching vessels, and of the sites of the different depots 

 of provisions that had been made for the benefit of the missing expedition, 

 were engraved. The foxes were then set free to spread the intelligence far 

 and wide. 



In the spring, sledge expeditions, conducted by the officers, were sent 

 out in various directions. Lieutenant Eobinson searched the west shores 

 of Regent Inlet as far south as Fury Beach ; Lieutenant Barnard crossed 

 Barrow Strait to Cape Hurd, but was prevented by the hummocky condition 

 of the ice from reaching Cape Eiley or Beechey Island, where he would 

 have found traces of Franklin ; while Lieutenant Brown crossed Eegent 

 Inlet to Port Bowen. " By these excursions," writes Sir John Eichardson, 

 "taken in conjunction with Mr Eae's expedition in the spring of 1847, 

 the whole of Prince Eegent Inlet and the Gulf of Boothia was examined, 

 with the exception of 160 miles between Fury Beech and Lord Mayor's 

 Bay ; and as there were no indications of the ships having touched on any 

 part of the coast so narrowly traced, it is certain that they had not attempted 

 to find a passage in that direction." Of these search excursions the most 

 important was that of Sir James Eoss, who, accompanied by Lieutenant 

 M'Chntock— a name destined to become one of the most famous in the annals 

 of Arctic discovery — thoroughly explored the west coast of North Somerset, 

 down to lat. 72° 38' N., long. 95f W. After having thus surveyed nearly 

 the whole of the west coast of North Somerset, a line of coast previously 

 quite unknown, he returned to the ships on the 23d June, much exhausted 

 by fatigue. At Port Leopold, Sir James erected a store-house, in which he 

 left a large store of provisions and fuel, together with the " Investigator's" 

 launch and steam-engine. He then proceeded to cut his way out of the ice- 

 encumbered harbour— a work which was not successfully accomplished until 

 -the 28th August, when the season was again on the turn, and enclosure 

 among new ice no unlikely contingency. Having struggled out of the bay 

 in which he had been for a year imprisoned, Eoss crossed over in a north- 

 west direction toVard Wellington Channel, at the entrance of which he 

 found the land-ice still fast, and preventing his approach. While contend- 

 ing with the loose packs, and struggling to advance to the westward, a 

 strong gale of wind on the 1st September suddenly closed the ice around 



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