FRANKLIN'S FIRST WINTER QUARTERS. 507 



January 1st, a.d. 1846, on board H.M. Ship 'Terror/ aged 20 years;" 

 "Sacred to the memory of John Hartnell, A.B., of H.M.S. 'Erebus,' 

 died January 4th, 1846, aged 25 years. Haggai, c. i., v. 7, 'Thus 

 saith the Lord of Hosts, Consider your ways ; '" " Sacred to the memory of 

 Wm. Braine, RM., of H.M.S. 'Erebus,' died April 3d, 1846, aged 32 years. 

 ' Choose ye this day whom ye will serve,' Joshua, c. xxiv., part of 15 v." 

 Death claims his own in every quarter of the world : 



" And here and there a churchyard grave is found, 

 In the cold North's unhallowed ground." 



Of these graves, pathetic in their simplicity, the late Sherard Osborn, 

 who had himself carefully examined them in 1850, thus writes : " The graves 

 next attracted our attention ; they, like all that English seamen construct, 

 were scrupulously neat. Go where you will over the globe's surface — afar 

 in the east, or afar in the west, down amongst the coral-girded isles of the 

 South Sea, or here where the grim north frowns on the sailor's grave — you 

 will always find it alike ; it is the monument raised by rough hands but 

 affectionate hearts over the last home of their messmate ; it breathes of the 

 quiet churchyard in some of England's many nooks, where each had formed 

 his idea of what was due to departed worth ; and the ornaments that nature 

 decks herself with, even in the desolation of the frozen zone, were carefully 

 culled to mark the seaman's last home." From the dates on these head- 

 boards it is abundantly evident that the " Erebus " and " Terror " had win- 

 tered off the north shore of Beechey Island. Captain Penny, therefore, to 

 quote again the words of Sherard Osborn, "ascertained the first winter 

 quarters of Sir John Franklin's squadron." 



Besides the site of a large store-house and workshop found along the 

 north shore of the island, smaller sites, supposed to have been those of 

 observatories and other temporary erections, were also noted. Coal-bags 

 containing small quantities of patent fuel were found scattered about. " The 

 meat tins," says Sutherland, "were piled in heaps in the same regular 

 manner in which shot is piled up. Each had been packed with loose 

 shingle, and when the tiers of a single layer were completed, the interstices 

 were filled up with shingle. In this way several mounds were raised to a 

 height of nearly two feet, and they varied in breadth from three to four 

 yards." The number of tins in the mounds was computed at six or seven 

 hundred, but many more were dug up and emptied while the search was 

 being prosecuted. Amid all the searchings, however, no documents were 

 found, and the fate of Franklin seemed mysterious as ever. But though it 

 appeared astonishing to Penny and his brother officers that Franklin should 

 have left his first winter quarters without leaving papers stating by what 



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