34 
copper sheathing hkc so much ladies' curl-paper, whilst every beam and timber 
in her have been creaking and groaning, and the rudder almost wrung from its 
fastenings. Ice with which the floes and packs within the bays and straits of 
the Arctic circle can no more be compared than the ice on the surface of the 
Serpentine can with the floes of Melville Bay. The only ice I have ever seen 
in the north at all to be compared with the southern packs occurs in the Spitz- 
bergen seas. 
1 have entered more fully upon the effects of ice than I should otherwise 
have done, in consequence of having frequently heard the loss of the " Brcadal- 
bane" hired transport, cited as an example of the loss of Sir John Franklin's 
ships, many persons jumping at once to the conclusion that the latter must have 
been crushed and ingulfed in the same summary way as the unlucky transport 
was. The two cases, however, are widely different. The " Breadalbane" was 
known to be an old vessel, which the owners had not sufficiently doubled or 
strengthened to enable her to resist even a moderate degree of pressure from 
two contending floes ; the consequence was, they went through her bottom, and 
she disappeared beneath them within a quarter of an hour from the time she 
was first caught in the " nip," as I was a witness to myself from the deck of the 
" PhcEnix," which ship was in the same " nip." 
The American whaler " M'Lellen" lost in Melville Bay in the season of 
1852, is another instance brought forward in support of this opinion; but she, 
also, was an old worn-out ship, and her timbers very defective where the 
floe-edge caught her side and stove her in. This I saw myself as I went 
on board of her at the time, she having become a wreck immediately under the 
bows of the " North Star," carrying away that vessel's cathead. But to draw 
any comparison between those two vessels and the " Erebus" and " Terror" 
would be like comparing the cracking a hollow filbert with the hardest ivory 
nut. 
Much has been said about the ships having been forced out of Erebus and 
Terror Bay, and of their having left indications behind them of a hurried 
departure. On what grounds these surmises have been founded it would be 
somewhat difficult to divine. I passed a whole year in that bay, and whatever 
may be said to the contrary, I believe it to be utterly impossible that any vessel 
could be driven out of it after having once been frozen in : a more safe bay for 
wintering in does not exist along the whole line of coast. Its very fault lies in 
its security, the difficulty in getting out again when once within it, as the bay- 
floe rarely breaks up before the end of August or beginning of September. 
The " North Star" getting on shore there had nothing whatever to do with the 
bay, and was an event in no way calculated to compromise its character for 
safety. The spot where the " Erebus" and " Terror" laid was evidently near 
its western extremity, in the curve of the bay formed by the shingle ridge, ex- 
tending out from Beechey Island on which " the graves" are situated i the close 
vicinity of the magnetic observatory, the armourer's forge, the washing-place at 
the water-course, and the small garden not much farther off, with the cairn 
above it — all combined to point out this as the winter quarters of the ships, 
and a more secure one could not well have been fixed upon. In fact it 
was the only position in this bay in which a ship would be altogether secure 
from being driven on shore by any sudden ingress of ice in the autumn before 
the winter's floe was firmly formed ; and, as such, could not fail to have been 
selected by one of Sir John Franklin's judgment and experience. I saw nothing 
whatever in support of the notion that the departure of the ships was a hurried 
one, but much to convince me that Franklin and those with him had not idly 
passed their winter here, to which the sites of tents in various directions, sledge- 
tracks, and everything else bore ample testimony. 
Furtlicr, I am of opinion that sledging-parties from his ships had been up the 
Wellington Channel, and reasoning upon what I know may be accomplished 
even in midwinter, where energy exists, as in such men as Franklin and my 
lamented friend, that soul of enterprise, the noble-minded Bellot, these sledge 
journics were very probably extended beyond Cape Lady Franklin — even to the 
portal of the Polar Ocean. Their tracks round Cape Spencer in the direction 
of Cape I>owden, clearly point out the course they had in view ; here no induce- 
ment could be held out to the sportsmn to tarry, there is not even sufficient 
game for a single gun, far less to render it an eligible spot for pitching a tent as 
a mere shooting station. 
'I'hc swampy flat, intersected by small lakes and water courses, in the vicinity 
