358 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



who, perceiving the impolicy of so many ships pressing to the westward on one 

 parallel, turned back, but were soon shut up in the pack-ice, which for eight long 

 months kept them prisoners. The " Rescue " and " Advance " were drifted 

 backward and forward in Wellington Channel until in December a terrific 

 storm drove them into Barrow's Strait, and still farther on into Lancaster Sound. 

 Several times during this dreadful passage they were in danger from the ice 

 opening round them and closing suddenly again, and only escaped being " nip- 

 ped" by their small size and strong build, which enabled them to rise above 

 the opposing edges instead of being crushed between them. Even on their ar* 

 rival in Baffin's Bay the ice did not release them from its hold, and it was not 

 till June 9, 1851, that they reached the Danish settlement at Disco. After re- 

 cruiting his exhausted crew, the gallant De Haven determined to return and 

 prosecute the search during the remainder of the season ; but the discouraging 

 reports of the whalers induced him to change his purpose, and the ships and 

 crews reached New York at the beginning of October, having passed through 

 perils such as few have endured and still fewer have lived to recount. 



Meanwhile the English searching expeditions had not remained inactive. 

 As soon as spring came, well-organized sledge expeditions were dispatched in 

 all directions, but they all returned with the same invariable tale of disappoint- 

 ment. 



As soon as Wellington Channel opened. Penny boldly entered the ice-lanes 

 with a boat, and, after a series of adventures and difficulties, penetrated up 

 Queen's Channel as far as Baring Island and Cape Beecher, where, most reluc- 

 tantly, he was compelled to turn back. 



A fine open sea stretched invitingly away to the north, but his fragile boat 

 was ill-equipi3ed for a voyage of discovery. Fully persuaded that Franklin must 

 have followed this route, he failed, however, in convincing Captain Austin of the 

 truth of his theory, and as, without that officer's co-operation, nothing could be 

 effected, he was compelled to follow the course pointed out by the Admiralty 

 squadron, which, after two ineffectual attempts to enter Smith's and Jones's 

 Sounds, returned to England. 



The "Prince Albert" having brought home in 1850 the intelligence of the 

 discoveries at Beechey Island, it was resolved to prosecute the search during 

 the next season, and no time was lost to refit the little vessel and send her once 

 more on her noble errand, under the command of William Kennedy (1851-52), 

 to examine Prince Regent's Inlet, on the coast of North Somerset. Finding the 

 passage obstructed by a barrier of ice, Kennedy was obliged to take a tempo- 

 rary refuge in Port Bowen, on the eastern shore of the inlet. As it was very 

 undesirable, however, to winter on the opposite coast to that along which lay 

 their line of search, Kennedy, with four of his men, crossed to Port Leopold, 

 amid masses of ice, to ascertain whether any documents had been left at this 

 point by previous searching parties. None having been found, they prepared 

 to return ; but to their dismay they now found the inlet so blocked with ice as 

 to render it absolutely impossible to reach the vessel either by boat or on foot. 

 Darkness was fast closing round them, the ice-floe on which they stood threaten- 

 ed every instant to be shivered in fragments by the contending ice-blocks which 



