THE FRA:N^KLIX expedition 449 



search expeditions vmder such ahle and experienced command- 

 ers as Sir James Ross, Sir Edward Belcher, Sir Leopold 

 McClintock, Admirals Austin, Richards, Kellett, Sherard 

 Osborne, and Captains Ommaney, Cater, Pnllen, Penny and 

 others. British private generosity sent forth the Felix under 

 Sir John Ross. A spirit of kindred sympathy impelled Amer- 

 ican citizens and their Government to unite in equipping 

 several auxiliary ships under Captains de Haven and Griffin 

 and the heroic Dr. Kane and his associate, Dr. Hayes ; while 

 the wifely devotion of Lady Franklin despatched three addi- 

 tional vessels— the first, Prince Albert, in command of Cap- 

 tain Forsyth, and later of Captain William Kennedy, after- 

 wards of St. Andrew's, Manitoba, and his gallant but un- 

 fortunate colleague. Lieutenant Bellot, of the French naval 

 ser-vice. 



" Xeither was the sea search by way of the Pacific 

 neglected. In 1848 the ships Herald and Plover left for 

 Point Barrow, Alaska, via Cape Horn and Behring's Strait. 

 Two years later they were followed by Captains Collinson 

 and McClure, with H. M. ships Enterprise and Investigator. 

 It is remarkable that, of all the many ship expeditions sent 

 out, the Enterprise in October, 1852, without knowing it, got 

 nearest by sea, to the scene of the great disaster, while Collin- 

 son in May, 1853, actually looked across the frozen Victoria 

 Strait where Franklin's ships were so long beset in the ice, 

 quite unconscious that King William Land (Island) held the 

 unburied skeletons of the men he sought; but the roughness 

 of the ice and the weakness of his sledging party forbade 

 crossing. 



" It may prove of interest to recount that nothing in the 

 long tale of Arctic research is finer than the cool way in 

 which Captain McClure and his gallant band fought their 

 way in the Investigator around that terrible ice-beset western 

 coast of Baring Island. There, in Mercy Bay, the winters 

 of 1851-2 and 1852-3 were passed, and there was no hope 

 of ultimate egress by remaining with the ship. In April 



