PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
565 
befallen his party, our efforts to maintain our station in both years had, 
by the blessing of Providence, been successful, so that at no period of 
the appointed time of rendezvous could he have missed both the boat Oce 
and the ship, or have arrived at the appointed place in Kotzebue Sound 
without finding the anticipated relief. 
The enterprising voyage of Captain F ranklin down the Mackenzie 
and along the northern shores of the continent of America is now 
familiar to us all, and, considering that the distance between the ex- 
tremities of our discoveries was less than fifty leagues, and that giving 
him ten days to perform it in, he would have arrived at Point Barrow 
at the precise period with our boat, we must ever regret that he could 
not have been made acquainted with our advanced situation, as in that 
case he would have been justified in incurring a risk which would have 
been unwarrantable under any other circumstances. Let me not for 
a moment be supposed by this to detract one leaf from the laurels that 
have been gained by Captain Franklin and his enterprising associates, 
who, through obstacles which would have been insurmountable by 
persons of less daring and persevering minds, have brought us ac- 
quainted with an extent of country which, added to the discovery it 
was our good fortune to push so far along the shore to the westward of 
them, has left a very small portion of the coast unknown. 
The extent of land thus left unexplored between Point Turnagain 
and Icy Cape is comparatively so insignificant that, as regards the ques- 
tion of the north-west passage, it may be considered to be known ; and in 
this point of view both expeditions, though they did not meet, may be 
said to have been fully successful. From the nature and similarity of the 
coast at Return Reef and Point Barrow, it is very probable that the land 
from Franklin Extreme trends gradually to the eastward to Return 
Reef, leaving I’oint Barrow in latitude 71° 23' 30" N. the northern 
limit of the continent of America. 
The determination of this great geographical question is un- 
doubtedly important ; but though it sets a boundary to the new conti- 
nent, and so far diminishes the difficulties attending an attempt to 
effect a passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, yet it leaves the 
practicability of the north-west passage nearly as doubtful as ever ; 
