506 THE FRANKLIN SEARCH— lQ43-ol. 



with birds' wings, tails, heads, feathers, and bones, some of which appeared 

 evidently to have been in the fire. The track of a sledge was discovered, 

 and the marks of the runners, which were very distinct, were found to be 

 two feet apart." 



The large body of relics thus discovered by Captain Penny were held to 

 be incontestible proofs of two facts : that parties belonging to the " Erebus " 

 and " Terror " had lived here for a considerable time, and that the period at 

 which they did sojourn here was about 1846, or four years before the dis- 

 covery of the encampment. These facts having been so far established, 

 many inferences were deduced from, and many opinions based upon them. 

 With these we have now nothing to do. It is sufficient here to chronicle 

 the fact that what the officers of the " Assistance " failed to establish from 

 the inspection of traces of Franklin at Cape Eiley and Beechey Island, 

 Penny clearly enough established from inspection' of the deserted encamp- 

 ment six miles north of Cape Spencer. The former arrived at no conclusion 

 as to " what time, or under what circumstances, the expedition had been " 

 at the localities examined by them ; the latter had already discovered that 

 the expedition had been there in 1846, and he was now on the eve of dis- 

 covering under what circumstances the sojourn was made. Having resolved 

 to thoroughly examine the coast to the north and south of Cape Spencer, he 

 gave orders not to make sail from the neighbourhood during the night. Sail- 

 ing southward next morning, Penny reached a floe fixed in a bay between Cape 

 Spencer and Beechey Island, to which he secured his ships. Here the 

 " Felix," under the veteran Sir John Eoss, who had come out to join in the 

 search, and the two vessels of the American expedition, had already been 

 moored. To the commanders of these ships Penny at once communicated 

 the results of his gratifying discovery ; and immediately afterwards he sent 

 away a party to Beechey Island, under command of Mr Stewart of the 

 " Sophia," in search of further traces. The search was highly successful. 

 Mute relics were found in abundance ; but no written document, no record 

 to teU the searchers when their missing countrymen were there, or whither 

 they went when they left the island. Sutherland tells us that among the 

 articles found were tin canisters in hundreds ; pieces of cloth and rope ; 

 wood, in large fragments and in chips ; pieces of iron around the spot where 

 the anvil had stood, together with the block that supported the latter ; paper, 

 it seems, both "written" and "printed," but affording no intelligence. 

 Along the northern shore of Beechey Island the embankment of a house, a 

 carpenter's and an armourer's " shop," and — saddest memorial of all — the 

 graves of three men belonging to the ships, who had died here early in 1846, 

 and above whose last resting-places oaken headboards with inscriptions had 

 been raised by their comrades. The inscriptions on the headboards are as 

 follow : " Sacred to the memory of John Torrington, who departed this life 



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