CHAPTEE V 
TASMANIA AND THE ANTARCTIC 
From August 16 to November 12 they stayed at Tasmania. 
The dominant person in the island was the Governor, Sir John 
Franldin,^ who, seconded by Lady Frankhn, gave all aid and 
welcome with the enthusiasm of an old Arctic explorer, indeed 
volunteering to take a share himself in the long term day 
observations, which reminded him, he declared, of old times 
in the North.^ Nor, later, did he forget Hooker. Lieutenant 
1 Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). Though he fought at Copenhagen and 
Trafalgar, it was as an explorer that Franklin won chief distinction and became 
the friend of the elder Hooker. From 1800 he had spent three years with 
Flinders in the Investigator surveying the coasts of Australia. In 1818 he first 
joined in the search for the North- West Passage, for the discovery of which 
he ultimately paid with his life. Sailing eastwards from Spitsbergen, the 
expedition had to turn back ; but Franklin, commanding the Trent, under 
Buchan in the Dorothea, revealed himself as a great commander and a scientific 
investigator and was elected F.R.S. in 1822. In 1819-23 he led an exploring 
part}^ along the Saskatchewan and the Coppermine rivers and eastward along 
the coast ; in 1825-7 he descended the Mackenzie river and followed the 
coast Mest, trying to meet Beechey, who was pushing east from Behring Strait. 
From 1837-43 he was Lieutenant-Governor of Tasmania, where, as Avill be 
seen, he welcomed Joseph Hooker; in 1845 he set out on his last voyage in 
the Erebus and Terror, Ross's ships in the Antarctic, accompanied by Ross's 
second in command, Captain Crozier, and was heard of no more. BetAveen 
1847 and 1857 no less than thirty -nine search-parties were sent out from 
England and America. Piece by piece the mystery was solved. Franklin 
was one of those who died while the ships were hopelessl}^ beset by ice for 
eighteen months ; Captain Crozier and the rest, 105 in number, perished 
as they tried to march homewards. 
2 Ross's ' devotion to his beloved pendulum ' was the dominant note. In 
the primitive room whose floor was Mother Earth, for lack of timber, ' the 
oflBcers relieve one another in regular watches, and I never met with such 
devotees to science. You would be delighted to see Captain R.'s little hammock 
swinging close to his darling Pendulum, and a large hole in his thin partition, 
that he may see it at any moment, and Captain Crozier's hammock is close 
alongside of it.' 
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