350 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



ing Sir John Franklin's former discoveries to the eastward in Coronation Gulf 

 with those made by him on this occasion to the westward of the Mackenzie. 

 The cold during the second winter at Fort Franklin was intense, the thermom- 

 eter standing at one time at 58° below zero ; but the comfort they now enjoyed 

 formed a most pleasing contrast to the squalid misery of Fort Enterprise. 



When Franklin left England to proceed on this expedition, his first wife was 

 then lying at the point of death, and indeed expired the day after his depart- 

 ure. But with heroic fortitude she urged him to set out on the very day ap- 

 pointed, entreating him, as he valued her peace and his own glory, not to delay 

 a moment on her account. His feelings may be imagined when he raised on 

 Garry Island a silk flag which she had made and given him as a parting gift, 

 with the instruction that he was only to hoist it on reaching the Polar Sea. 



While Parry and Franklin were thus severally employed in searching for a 

 western passage, a sea expedition under the command of Captain Beechey had 

 been sent to Bering's Straits to co-operate with them, so as to furnish provis- 

 ions to the former and a conveyance home to the latter — a task more easily 

 planned than executed ; and thus we can not wonder that when the " Blossom " 

 reached the appointed place of rendezvous at Chamisso Island, in Kotzebue 

 Sound (July 25, 1826), she found neither Parry (who had long since returned 

 to England) nor Franklin. Yet the barge of the " Blossom " — which was dis- 

 patched to the eastward under charge of Mr. Elson — narrowly missed meeting 

 the latter ; for when she was stopped by the ice at Point Barrow, she was only 

 about 150 miles from Return Reef, the limit of his discoveries to the westward 

 of the Mackenzie. 



In the year 1827 the indefatigable Parry undertook one of the most extra- 

 ordinary voyages ever performed by man ; being no less than an attempt to 

 reach the North Pole by boat and sledge travelling over the ice. His hopes of 

 success were founded on Crosby's authority, who reports having seen ice-fields 

 so free from either fissure or hummock, that had they not been covered with 

 snow, a coach might have been driven many leagues over them in a direct line ; 

 but when Parry reached the ice-fields to the north of Spitzbergen, he found them 

 of a very different nature, composed of loose, rugged masses, intermixed with 

 pools of water, which rendered travelling over them extremely arduous and slow. 

 The strong flat-bottomed boats, specially prepared for an amphibious journey, 

 with a runner attached to each side of the keel, so as to adapt them for sledg- 

 ing, had thus frequently to be laden and unladen, in order to be raised over the 

 hummocks, and repeated journeys backward and forward over the same ground 

 were the necessary consequence. Frequently the crew had to go on hands and 

 knees to secure a footing. Heavy showers of rain often rendered the surface 

 of the ice a mass of slush, and in some places the ice took the form of sharp- 

 pointed crystals, which cut the boots like penknives. But in spite of all these 

 obstacles, they toiled cheerfully on, until at length, after thirty-five days of in- 

 cessant drudgery, the discovery was made that, while they were apparently ad- 

 vancing towards the pole, the ice-field on which they were travelling was drift- 

 ing to the south, and thus rendering all their exertions fruitless. Yet, though 

 disappointed in his hope of planting his country's standard on the northern 



