524 THE FRANKLIN SEAECH— 18^8-51. 



CHAPTEE V. 



SLEDGE JOURNEYS OF CAPTAIN AUSTIN'S OFFICERS. 



In one respect Captain Austin's expedition was peculiar — it was the 

 first Government expedition in which exploring operations were carried on 

 during the autumn, after the vessels had been regularly settled in winter 

 quarters. To work while it is day is absolutely necessary in the most 

 literal sense in these regions, and Government expeditions hitherto accepted 

 without question the previously received belief that no explorer could work 

 after the long Arctic night had set in. Certainly the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany's explorers, and conspicuously Dr Rae, continued to labour with about 

 equal success in day and in dusk, and were not quite idle even in dark ; but 

 it was left for Captain Austin's officers to demonstrate that the manifold 

 resources and the elaborate equipment of a Government expedition could be 

 turned to profitable account during some of the months in which their 

 predecessors had been content to consider it an impossibility, or at the least 

 an unheard-of innovation, to carry on the work of sledge travelling. 



No sooner had the ships become fixed in the ice off" Griffith Island, than 

 preparations for sending out sledge parties were commenced. The manage- 

 ment of these preparations was entrusted to Lieutenant M'Clintock of the 

 "Assistance," an officer who, by scientifically elaborating the system of 

 sledge-travelling, by due attention to the structure and weight of the sledge, 

 the housing and victualling of the men, etc., has brought this method of 

 exploration to great perfection. Early in the season M'Clintock had urged 

 the necessity of sending travelling parties to forward depdts of provisions 

 upon the routes to be followed by the sledges at a later date, and on the 2d 

 October he started from the winter quarters and established a dep6t of pro- 

 visions at the distance of thirty-five miles westward from the ships, and on the 

 route toward Melville Island. This journey, which lasted seven days, was the 

 first experiment ever made in Ai'ctic travelling during autumn. The mean 

 temperature was 3° below zero, " and," says Markham, " no Arctic voyager 

 had hitherto ventured to dare the rigours of this season." Other parties had 

 been sent out at about the same time. Lieutenant Aldrich went westward to 



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