selected to command this expedition, accompanied by Dr. Richardson, a gentleman well skilled in natural history; with Mr. Hood, and Mr. Back, two midshipmen; and two English seamen. Franklin and his companions embarked in the end of May 1819, and arrived in safety at York Factory, on the shores of Hudson's Bay, on the 30th of August. The whole party were assembled at Fort Chippewayan; and on the 18th of July 1820 they set forward on their journey with hopes that, before the good season should expire, they might be able to establish themselves comfortably for the winter at the mouth of the Coppermine river, and to employ the whole of the following spring in the examination of the coast to the eastward. When they had got about 550 miles from Chippewayan, the Canadian hunters declared it would be impossible for them to proceed further, when on the bank of a river named Winter river, they constructed a house, and called it Fort Enterprise. Here they wintered while Mr. (since Sir George) Back returned to Chippewayan, to see after the baggage and necessary articles which had not yet arrived from the southward. This extraordinary journey was performed wholly on foot, in snow storms, over a distance of 1104 miles, and in the depth of winter. It was June 1821 be fore the ice was sufficiently broken in the Coppermine river to allow of its being navigated by canoes, and the 18th of July before they reached the sea at the mouth of the river. On the 21st of July, twenty people, of whom fifteen had never seen salt water, launched on the Polar Sea, in two frail bark canoes, with provisions for only fifteen days, and a voyage before them of indefinite extent. They followed the coast for two weeks, often pinched for want of food, till they came to what is now called Coronation Gulf, a distance of 555 geographical miles. Here their distresses began to increase daily, and Captain Franklin found it absolutely necessary to return, making a land journey. On the fifth day of their journey, they were surprised by a heavy fall of snow, the harbinger of winter. During a journey of three weeks, all the fresh meat that could be procured, amounted to only five days' consumption. The strength and spirits of the Canadians sank rapidly through want of food, and through recklessness induced by their despairing condition their two canoes were dashed to pieces, although they had yet to cross the Coppermine river. They reached the banks of the river on the 26th September, and after a delay of eight days managed to cross with extreme difficulty. The next stage of ' their journey was about to prove even more disastrous. They were within forty miles of Fort Enterprise, without food, and miserably reduced by toil, anxiety, and privation. Mr. Back and three Canadians hastened forward in the hope of finding a band of hunters in the neighbourhood of Fort Enterprise. A few days afterwards Captain Franklin and seven of the party proceeded onward, leaving Dr. Richardson and Mr. Hood to take care of those who were unable to continue the march. They were within twenty-four miles of Fort Enterprise when this separation took place. Four of those who set out with Captain Franklin left him in the course of the journey, being unable to proceed. Michel, an Indian, alone returned to Dr. Richardson's party, the other three were heard of no more. When Captain Franklin reached the Fort on the 11th, having tasted no food for five days, he found it utterly deserted, with no provisions, and without trace of any living animal. He remained eighteen days thus, in a miserable and helpless condition, when on the 29th October, Dr. Richardson and John Hepburn made their appearance, but without the remainder of the party. They brought the melancholy intelligence that Mr. Hood and the Iroquois were both dead. Michel, they had good reason to believe, had shot Hood in a sullen or spiteful fit, and they in self-defence had put the Indian to death by a pistolshot. On the 7th November relief came to them at last, sent from Mr. Back by three Indians. The Indians cleaned the house, and attended the famished travellers with a kindness, it is said, that would have done honour to most civilized people. In about a week afterwards they were able to set out for Fort Chippewayan, where they remained until June in the year following. Proceeding to the nearest of the company's posts, they met with their companion Mr. Back, to whom they were so much indebted for their preservation and the ultimate success of their expedition. And so terminated a journey which had occupied over three years, and which extended to 5500 miles. The coast, running northward, had been followed to Cape Turnagain in lat. 6810, making it evident, if a northwest passage did exist, it must be found beyond that limit. A better equipped expedition was undertaken by Franklin and Richardson to the same region in 1825. Descending the Mackenzie river to the Polar Ocean, a large extent of coast westward from its mouth was explored, and the whole space examined eastward to the Coppermine, while Captain Beechy, sailing in the Biossom frigate through Behring's Strait, had very nearly connected himself with the overland expedition. Both these expeditions were fruitful in scientific results. A series of magnetic observations | which was now to include any northern passage' for ships, provided they should get within one degree of the Pole. The farthest point this eminent navigator could reach was 70 45' beyond Icy Cape, where he found the ice stretching in a compact mass to the opposite continent, to which he also sailed, going as far as Cape North on the coast of Asia. Some notions of the success of his expedition seem to have been entertained at the time, as a vessel in charge of Lieutenant Pickersgill had been sent to wait for him at Baffin's Bay. were commenced, and some observations recorded on the Aurora Borealis. Dr. Richardson delivered a course of lectures, too, on practical geology, with regard to the new country. Mr. Drummond, one of the party, who passed a whole winter alone at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, in a hut erected by himself, had collected 1500 specimens of plants, and 200 birds and quadrupeds, besides insects. The cold experienced by Franklin's party at Fort Enterprise is said to have been more severe than that felt by Parry in Melville Island, much nearer the Pole. The trees in the neighbourhood were frozen to their very centre, any attempts to fell them only resulted in the breaking of the axe. Fogs were of very frequent occurrence, enveloping both earth and ocean in deepest gloom. Parhelion mock-suns sometimes shone at different quarters of the firmament, and in winter when the sun disappeared, the Aurora Borealis with its vivid light lighted up the northern sky. A reward of £20,000 had been offered by Parliament in 1743 to any one who should sail to the north-west by way of Hudson's Strait. Captain Cook sailed in 1776 on this wellknown but fatal expedition. His instructions were to attempt the passage of the icy sea from Behring's Strait to Baffin's Bay. A further reward of £5000 had been added to the former grant, | In 1818, at the close of the long Continental war, two expeditions were again fitted out, for the purpose of passing from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the north of America. The fact that whales breaking loose after being struck in the Greenland waters, had been captured in Behring's Strait with the harpoons adhering to them, and also that at that particular time the northern waters were reported as remarkably free from ice, had great weight with the Admiralty, and the Council of the Royal Society. Accordingly the Isabella, under Captain Ross, and the Alexander, commanded by Lieutenant Parry, were fitted out to follow up, if possible, this line of communication, and form another attempt at a solution of a northwest passage. The ships put to sea on the 18th of April 1818. They found the ice abundant on their arrival at the | western coast of Greenland, and they were told by the governor of one of the Danish settlements there, that he found the winters were growing uniformly more severe. The commander made the round of Baffin's Bay, and confirmed the general accuracy of the old navigator's delineation of it, but owing to the evident carelessness or want of hope on the part of Captain Ross, several inlets, such as Wolstenholm Sound, Sir Thomas Smith's Sound, and Lancaster Sound, were either very imperfectly or superficially surveyed. Ross, when sailing up Lancaster Sound, while the sea was comparatively free from ice, extremely deep, and its temperature increased, and with every prospect of a good voyage westward, suddenly made a signal to tack about. He explained as the reason of this sudden resolution, that he had seen land stretching across the inlet at a distance of eight leagues. To some ignorant and degraded natives on the northern shores of Greenland, Ross gave the name of Arctic Highlanders. They received from them some fragments of meteoric iron. But one of the strangest spectacles they witnessed on the voyage was a range of cliffs 600 feet high, and eight miles in length, covered with snow of a deep ed colour, which, when thawed, like muddy port wine. n was brought home for analysis, when it was found that the redness was occasioned by the presence of a multitude of minute cryptogamic plants, which vegetate in the severest weather, and penetrate to a great depth in the snow. The Admiralty in 1818 also despatched Captain Buchan and Lieutenant Franklin in the Dorothea and the Trent, who reached 80° 34', when they were stopped by ice. A narrative of the voyage, which added little to previous information, was written by Captain Beechy. Lieutenant Parry, who had sailed with Captain Ross, but dissented from him with regard to the impracticability of the north-west passage, was placed in command of the Hecla and Griper for another expedition, which left the Nore on the 11th May 1819, and made the entrance of Lancaster Sound on the 30th July. 'The hope of finding a northwest passage rested chiefly on their success in this part of their mission. They crowded all sail, while a fresh easterly breeze carried them rapidly to the westward. "It is more easy to imagine than describe," says Captain Parry, "the almost breathless anxiety which was now visible in every countenance, while, as the breeze increased to a fresh gale, we ran quickly up the sound. The mastheads were crowded by the officers and men during the whole afternoon; and an unconcerned observer, if any could have been | unconcerned on such an occasion, would have been amused by the eagerness with which the various reports from the crow's nest were received: all, however, hitherto favourable to our most sanguine hopes." Before night they had passed the limits explored in the last voyage, and yet could discern no land in the direction of their progress. They had reached the longitude of 83 12'; and the two shores of the passage, as far as could be discerned, were observed to continue full fifty miles asunder. Thus the expedition proceeded rapidly to the westward. The sea was deep, had the colour of the ocean, with a long swell rolling from the south and east, and was perfectly free from ice. Our navigators began to flatter themselves that they had actually reached the Polar Sea ; but their joy received some check from discovering land ahead. This proved to be only a small island; but the ice stretching between it and the northern shore disturbed their hopes of proceeding to the west.' ceeded towards the west, to the farthest extreme of another large island which they named Melville Island, the difficulties which they had to encounter from ice and foggy weather continually increased; but on the 4th of September they succeeded in passing the meridian of 110° west longitude, by which they became entitled to the first sum in the scale of rewards granted by Parliament, namely £5000. A projecting point of land in this place was named from the circumstance Bounty Cape. A good roadstead, discovered at no great distance, was named the Bay of the Hecla and Griper: here the ensigns and pendants were hoisted; "and it created in us," says Captain Parry, "no ordinary feelings of pleasure to see the British flag waving for the first time in these regions, which had been hitherto considered beyond the limits of the habitable world."' 'On their first arrival in Winter Harbour, parties were sent out to hunt, and found abundance of grouse and reindeer; but these animals had all migrated from Melville Island before the end of October, foxes and wolves alone remaining through the winter. During the severest season no bears were seen, and one solitary seal was all that appeared. These sports, however, were not without their danger: some of the men who neglected the necespro-sary precautions were severely 'On advancing a little farther their difficulties increased. The passage was studded with small islands, the water was shoal, the ice more troublesome, and fogs frequent. They still, however, continued to proceed to the westward along the shore of a large island named Bathurst Island.' 'As our navigators |