ARCTIC VOYAGES. 
83 
collected and prepared to tow the dead fish to the ship. This was even more tedious 
than hauling in the lines, but as I had volunteered to take my place in the boat, I said 
not a word, but tugged away at my oar in silence. Luckily, however, one or two fish 
were seen near us, in pursuit of which our boat and another cast off from those which were 
towing. The moment we were again in chase, fatigue and languor vanished, and we 
stretched to our oars as heartily as we had done when we first left the ship. 
“ We had a long, but a fruitless pull, and in the meantime a light breeze had sprung 
up, and we could see that the ship had ‘cast off* from the land ice in the bay, and was 
working down towards the boats and dead fish. We pulled towards her at once, and I 
was not a little glad to be able to stretch myself on deck again, after nearly forty-eight 
hours’ confinement to the thwart of a boat. A hearty welcome from the captain, who was 
not a little astonished to find me so fresh after my labours, and the tempting sight of 
smoking beefsteaks and early potatoes on the cabin table, soon made me all right, nor 
did I feel half so fatigued as I might have expected, and was later than even my usual 
time of retiring to my narrow berth in the little closet off the cabin, which was by cour¬ 
tesy termed the Doctor's state room."—Goodsir , p. 88. 
It is right to mention that the services rendered to science by Dr. 
Armstrong have been, to some extent, recognised, since his return, by 
the award made to him of Sir Gilbert Blane’s Gold Medal, for his Me¬ 
dical and Scientific Journal, kept on board the “ Investigator.” 
We hope in July next to return to the subject of Arctic Yoyages, 
and, in the meantime, we would commend to the careful consideration 
of our readers the following question :— 
Was it Franklin or M‘ Clure that discovered the North- West Pas¬ 
sage ? 
The following statement of Captain Osborn will assist in the solution 
of this question:— 
“In the following session of Parliament, a select committee of the House of Commons 
met, to take into consideration the reward due to those who had discovered and achieved 
the North-west passage; but, in the interim between the arrival of Captain Sir Robert 
M‘Clure in England and the meeting of Parliament, news had arrived that Dr. Rae had 
obtained certain information of a party from Franklin’s missing squadron having passed 
the intervening unknown space which lay between Barrow’s Strait and the coast of 
North America. The duty of the committee became a somewhat more responsible one, 
in so far as it had to award the priority of discovery to Franklin or M‘Clure, before the 
papers of the former came to hand. 
“ Lady Franklin, in a most able and touching letter, called the earnest attention of the 
Honourable Committee to the impossibility of arriving at any certain decision in the ab¬ 
sence of all evidence as to Franklin’s claim to the priority *, and they, therefore, qualified 
the award by stating, very justly, that Captain Sir Robert M‘Clure, in H. M. S. ‘ In¬ 
vestigator,’ had discovered a North-west Passage, and successfully carried his followers 
from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean by that route, exhibiting himself an example of 
unflinching perseverance, courage, and zeal, which his officers and men nobly followed, 
and, to use the words of the Honourable Committee, ‘that they performed deeds of heroism 
which, though not accompanied by the excitement and the glory of the battle-field, yet 
rival, in bravery and devotion to duty, the highest and most successful achievements of 
war!’ Accordingly, a reward of £10,000 was granted to the officers and crew of H.M. S. 
‘ Investigator,’ as a token of national approbation; and, acting upon a suggestion 
thrown out by the Honourable Committee, there is every reason to hope that all this 
gallant ship’s company will eventually receive at the hands of their Queen a medal 
which they will assuredly treasure far more than any pecuniary reward.”— Osborn, 
p. 352. 
