160 On the Arctic Relief Expeditions. 



must be remembered that Sir John Franklin, in 1846, was 

 in exactly the same position as Sir Edward Belcher now is, 

 if lie then did get up Wellington Channel ; and surely his 

 expedition was as effective as that of the latter, and his crew 

 not inferior. 



While it is evident that the relief expeditions hitherto 

 have been too much concentrated on one side of the Arctic 

 regions, — in summer 1850 no less than eleven vessels were 

 accumulated in one spot, — it is not too much to say that the 

 search on the track of the missing vessels has only now com- 

 menced, by Sir Edward Belcher's having sailed up Welling- 

 ton Channel. 



The rest of the searching vessels at present in the Arctic 

 regions, the Investigator and Enterprise, as well as those 

 under Captain Kellett, are only directed to Banks Land and 

 Melville Island, a region probably far away from Sir John 

 Franklin's position. " The fearlessness and tameness of 

 the animals in Melville Island," says Lieutenant M'Clintock, 

 — the best authority on this point, — •' was almost in itself a 

 convincing proof that our countrymen had not been there ;" 

 and indeed, it may be added, not anywhere within five hun- 

 dred miles. If Sir John Franklin had wished to retreat to 

 any known region on the American side, nothing could 

 surely have hindered him from doing so. It is well known 

 that sledge parties have travelled distances of nearly one 

 thousand miles during one winter ; and Sir John Ross, after 

 four years' imprisonment in the ice, and with a force of only 

 twenty-four men, greatly reduced by hardships and trials, 

 travelled at least five hundred miles, partly by land and partly 

 by water, from the point where he abandoned his vessel to 

 that where he was released. 



The fact that no less than fifteen expeditions, consisting 

 of thirty vessels, besides the boats, had failed in their main 

 object, prompted me a short time back to draw attention to 

 a portion of the Arctic regions which has remained entirely 

 neglected, and to suggest a plan of search through the Spitz- 

 bergen Sea, that great ocean between Spitzbergen and 

 Novaya Zemlya. I adduced reasons to shew that that sea 

 would probably offer the best route, and demonstrated that 



