THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION 459 



ground was still much co\-ered with snow, while Schwatka 

 and Gilder's investigation thereof, in 1879, failed to find 

 them. And yet these records may ultimately perish there 

 because there is no one in existence to-day who knows the 

 exact position of that cache. 



The names and status of the officers of the Eranklin Expe- 

 dition when they left England, in 1845, are surely worthy 

 of record: 



H.M.Ship "Erebus" H.M. Ship "Terror" 



Captain— Sir John Franklin, K.C.B. Captain — F. B. M. Crozier 



Commander — James Fitzjames Lieutenant — Edward Little 



Lieutenant — Graham Gore — — George H. Hodgson 



H. P. D. Le Vesconte John Irving 



James W. Fairholme Surgeon — John S. Peddie, M.D. 



Surgeon — Stephen S. Stanley, M.D. Ice Master — Thomas Blanky 



Ice Master — James Read Asst. Surgeon — A. Macdonald 



Paymaster — C H. Osmer Second Master — G. A. Mac Lean 



Asst. Surgeon— H.D.S.Goodsir, M.D. Clerk in Charge — E. J. H. Helpman 



Second Master — Henry F. Collins Mats — Charles F. des Voeux 

 Mate— J. P. Couch ^^^^ 



AND 



Fifty-four Petty Officers, Mechanics, Fifty-four Petty Officers, Mechanics, 

 Marines, and Able Seamen, &c. Marines, and Able Seamen, &o. 



" The late Admiral Sir John Franklin was a brave, able, 

 and experienced navigator and explorer. He was also a man 

 of great amiability of character. Sir George Back, an old 

 and intimate friend, and companion also on both of Frank- 

 lin's overland expeditions to the shores of the Polar Ocean, 

 used on occasion to relate that it was his custom never to kill 

 a fly, and though often teased by mosquitoes beyond expres- 

 sion, especially when engaged in taking astronomical observa- 

 tions, he would quietly desist from his work and blow the 

 half-gorged intruder from his hands, remarking that " the 

 world was wide enough for both." Lord Tennyson, on the 

 Memorial Tablet erected to Franklin in Westminster Abbey, 

 beautifully chronicles his quiet death: 



" Not here : the white North has thy bones ; and thou. 

 Heroic sailor soul, 

 Art passing on thy happier voyage now 

 Toward no Earthly Pole.'' 



