SUMMARY OF ARCTIC EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS. 749 



expedition, consisting of the schooner Prince Albert, commanded by Charles Forsyth, 

 and having on board William Parker Snow, a volunteer, who after much service in 

 foreign seas, had acted as secretary to Macaulay, and aided him in the preparation of 

 the manuscript of the History of England. An American expedition consisting of 

 the Advance and the Rescue, under command of Lieutenant De Haven, was also sent 

 out this year. It was fitted out nominally by the government, but mainly at the ex- 

 pense of Henry Grinnell, a merchant of New York, whose name is also identified 

 with the expeditions of Charles Francis Hall. On this expedition, as surgeon, was 

 Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who as commander of a subsequent one won as high honor as 

 was ever achieved by any Arctic explorer. 



All these vessels cruised over the same general region, and for the one purpose of 

 discovering Franklin and his men. The first traces of them were found at Cape 

 Riley by Ommaney, in the Assistance, August 23, 1850. This was afterward shown 

 to be the place where Franklin had spent the winter of 1845-6. Here and close by, 

 mainly by the American expedition, were discovered the embankment of a house, the 

 working places of carpenters and armorers, the site of a small garden, empty meat 

 cans, and pieces of wearing apparel which had been thrown away ; and also the graves 

 of three men. But there were not the slightest traces to indicate in what direction 

 Franklin had gone. 



All the vessels wintered not far from each other, and the spring of 1851 was de- 

 voted to land expeditions which explored 672 miles of hitherto undescribed coast 

 along the shores of Wellington Channel to the north and towards Melville Island to 

 the west. One party, under Lieutenant McClintock, went farther west than had 

 hitherto been reached, as far as longitude 114° 20' . Frpm the tameness of the ani- 

 mals here seen it was inferred that few if any human beings had ever been seen there. 

 Kane came to the conclusion that after the breaking up of the ice in 1846, Franklin 

 had gone up Wellington Channel to the north. So far he was right ; but ignorant of 

 the fact, not known for years after, that Franklin had merely rounded Cornwallis 

 Island, and'returned almost to the same point, he supposed that Franklin had sailed 

 on northward into the great polar open sea, whose existence had now come to be 

 accepted. 



The Prince Albert returned to England in the summer of 1851, carrying back the 

 tidings of what had been discovered, and was sent back by Lady Franklin to explore 

 the shores of Regent's Inlet. She returned in 1853, having discovered nothing. 

 The American expedition returned to New York in the autumn of 1851. Sir James 

 Ross also returned, bringing nothing but vague rumor, afterward proved to be un- 

 founded, that the Franklin party had been murdered by the Esquimaux at Wolsten- 

 holme Sound, near the head of Baffin's Bay. Lady Franklin thereupon sent the 

 screw steamer Isabel, Captain Inglefield, to explore this region. Inglefield left Eng- 

 land in July, 1852, examined the Sound, but found no traces of Franklin, who had 

 indeed never gone in that direction. He, however, sailed up Smith's Sound, heading 

 northward from Baffin's Bay, and reached latitude 78° 28' 21", about 140 miles farther 

 than any one had gone before on the American side of the polar regions. He thought 

 that the climate was less rigid than it was further south ; he also rendered it almost 

 certain that Smith's Sound was a strait connecting Baffin's Bay with the Polar Ocean ; 

 a theory which is confirmed by all subsequent explorations. 



