CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE SEARCH FOR FRANKLIN. II. 
When Captain Austin's expedition returned the people 
of England were as determined as ever that the search 
should continue. But the advisers of the Admiralty in 
Committee were quite convinced that Franklin's ships 
were not where they had passed two winters and were 
lost, and that the region where our lost countrymen had 
suffered and died need not be visited. A majority of 
them held to the fatuous notion that Franklin had gone 
up Wellington Channel, and was far to the north. Under 
these circumstances it was, they considered, really quite 
useless to continue the search. But the father of Lieut. 
Cresswell pointed out that the Enterprise and Investigator 
had not been heard of, that there was cause for anxiety, 
and that one or both might need succour. 
It will be remembered that the Enterprise and Investi- 
gator, accompanied by the Plover y had been sent to attack 
the problem from the western side. Captain Collinson 
took the Enterprise through Bering Strait and made his 
first winter quarters in Prince Albert Sound on the west 
coast of Victoria Island, the Plover being stationed per- 
manently as a depot ship near Cape Barrow. In the 
spring Collinson himself explored the east coast of the 
long and narrow Prince of Wales's Strait, being absent 
from the ship for 51 days. Murray Parkes, a mate of 
the Enterprise, reached the northern mouth of the strait, 
crossed the channel, and leaving the sledge owing to 
heavy ice, arrived at Melville Island on foot and thus 
discovered a second North- West Passage. His remarkable 
journey had occupied 74 days. Collinson's second winter 
was in Cambridge Bay in Dease Strait. He thence made 
a journey of 49 days to Gateshead Island, where he was 
almost in sight of the Erebus and Terror off Cape Victory. 
The Investigatorhdid parted company. Captain M'Clure, 
who on October 20th had sighted Melville Island, wintered 
