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NORTHERN MAGAZINE.

No. VIII.

OCTOBER, 1852.

VOL. I.

THE MISSING ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

SINCE the days when those great navigators, John and Sebastian Cabot, successively attempted, at the close of the fifteenth century, to penetrate beyond the ice-girt shores of Greenland to the Arctic Ocean, down to the times of our own Ross, Sabine, and Parry, numerous have been the attempts, and not altogether unsuccessful the efforts, which the brave seamen of different nations have made to break through the icy barrier which surrounds the Pole, and, daring every danger, and enduring every privation, have endeavoured to discover that North-West passage, which, when found, could never be of practical utility or real advantage. Like the pursuit of the philosopher's stone, however, which occupied the thoughts and attention of the learned and the wise of the middle ages, this search after a North-West passage resulted in many useful discoveries, and materially increased the stock of human knowledge; so that we find that none worked in vain, but that each obtained such success as he was entitled to by his labours, and such distinction as his investigations merited. If we turn to the records of Arctic discovery, from its commencement until to-day, we find that Great Britain has been foremost in the race for distinction, and that no other nation has pursued the search so vigorously, so continuously, or, as a natural consequence, so successfully. We do not except even Russia, though that great power, with all its internal resources, and its favourable geographical position, might have been expected to have been the leader in Polar exploration; yet, although Kotzebue, and, more recently, Wrangel, are among the list of Arctic voyagers, thei names are but secon

dary to our own gallant seamen, and our own noble scientific navigators.

It is impossible to take up a volume of voyages in those strange and inhospitable regions, whether the faithful pages of Ross, or the more attractive Franklin, and not to feel almost fascinated by the recital of their dangers, their toil, their hair-breadth escapes, and their success. A perpetual aurora seems shed over their volumes, and there is no one, be he twenty or sixty, who reads those simple, and yet vivid descriptions, and does not feel proud of the courage, the skill, and the perseverance of the Anglo-Saxon race.

This spirit of enterprise, inherent in men of Saxon blood, has led, within the last thirty years, to a succession of expeditions to the Arctic regions, and it is to the fate of one of the last of these that we would now direct the attention of the public. Sir John Franklin, who, more than two-and-thirty years ago, led an expedition to the shores of the Polar Ocean, and who may be truly said to have devoted his life to its exploration, has been for seven years amid its icy-bound fastnesses, and for six years unheard of by his countrymen at home.

The people of England have not been slack in their efforts to assist him. Expedition after expedition has been sent in search for him; vessel after vessel has returned, bearing back to us, indeed, valuable and important geographical discoveries, but not our lost countrymen; and, as if exhausted with what they have done, some seem inclined to drop the further investigation, and to abandon Franklin and his companions to their fate.

We wish energetically to protest against such a course, for two reasons

some time, our conversation, which we have endeavoured to chronicle for the Northern, ceased, and save "Our Autumn Thoughts," as we homeward wandered, we have nothing else to record.

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NORTHERN MAGAZINE.

No. VIII.

OCTOBER, 1852.

VOL. I.

THE MISSING ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

SINCE the days when those great navigators, John and Sebastian Cabot, successively attempted, at the close of the fifteenth century, to penetrate beyond the ice-girt shores of Greenland to the Arctic Ocean, down to the times of our own Ross, Sabine, and Parry, numerous have been the attempts, and not altogether unsuccessful the efforts, which the brave seamen of different nations have made to break through the icy barrier which surrounds the Pole, and, daring every danger, and enduring every privation, have endeavoured to discover that North-West passage, which, when found, could never be of practical utility or real advantage. Like the pursuit of the philosopher's stone, however, which occupied the thoughts and attention of the learned and the wise of the middle ages, this search after a North-West passage resulted in many useful discoveries, and materially increased the stock of human knowledge; so that we find that none worked in vain, but that each obtained such success as he was entitled to by his labours, and such distinction as his investigations merited. If we turn to the records of Arctic discovery, from its commencement until to-day, we find that Great Britain has been foremost in the race for distinction, and that no other nation has pursued the search so vigorously, so continuously, or, as a natural consequence, so successfully. We do not except even Russia, though that great power, with all its internal resources, and its favourable geographical position, might have been expected to have been the leader in Polar exploration; yet, although Kotzebue, and, more recently, Wrangel, are among the list of Arctic voyagers, thei names are but secon

dary to our own gallant seamen, and our own noble scientific navigators.

It is impossible to take up a volume of voyages in those strange and inhospitable regions, whether the faithful pages of Ross, or the more attractive Franklin, and not to feel almost fascinated by the recital of their dangers, their toil, their hair-breadth escapes, and their success. A perpetual aurora seems shed over their volumes, and there is no one, be he twenty or sixty, who reads those simple, and yet vivid descriptions, and does not feel proud of the courage, the skill, and the perseverance of the Anglo-Saxon race.

This spirit of enterprise, inherent in men of Saxon blood, has led, within the last thirty years, to a succession of expeditions to the Arctic regions, and it is to the fate of one of the last of these that we would now direct the attention of the public. Sir John Franklin, who, more than two-and-thirty years ago, led an expedition to the shores of the Polar Ocean, and who may be truly said to have devoted his life to its exploration, has been for seven years amid its icy-bound fastnesses, and for six years unheard of by his countrymen at home.

The people of England have not been slack in their efforts to assist him. Expedition after expedition has been sent in search for him; vessel after vessel has returned, bearing back to us, indeed, valuable and important geographical discoveries, but not our lost countrymen; and, as if exhausted with what they have done, some seem inclined to drop the further investigation, and to abandon Franklin and his companions to their fate.

We wish energetically to protest against such a course, for two reasons

humanity and science unite in condemning it, and, as we shall endeavour to show, we may entertain, and do entertain, very reasonable hopes of Franklin's safety, on considerations drawn from the climate of the region in which he is supposed to be the natural resources of the country-and his own peculiar advantages, with stores, ammunition, and fuel.

The recent discoveries of Captain Penny have placed it beyond a doubt, that to the north of the islands at the head of Baffin's Bay lies an open ocean, the climate of which is milder than that of the archipelago to the south; for, as a general rule, in high latitudes such as those, an ocean is warmer than a continent, water than land, for this simple reason, that the land in summer receives a great quantity of heat, but rapidly loses it in winter, while the water in summer is less heated than the land, but retains that heat longer in winter. It follows, therefore, that no great continent can exist to the north of this clear, open ocean, or the climate would be in proportion severe. Should Sir John Franklin have penetrated to this open ocean, and been wrecked on some of its islands, the climate will not be there so severe as that endured by Sir John Ross in the winters of 1830, 1831, and 1832; and when one reads in his second voyage such entries as the following:-* "1831, January 1.-Though the temperature remained at 47°, it was calm, and not severe on the feelings." And again" March 30.-A decided and pleasing change took place-the thermometer reached 11° minus, and the men were congratulating each other on the fine warm day, even when it had sunk to -20°," there is surely no reason for believing that what he and his party endured, Franklin and his companions cannot also bear; and, as we said above, the temperature of the open sea is considerably higher than that of the ice-bound bay where Ross wintered in the Victory. There is no doubt that a civilised man can endure as much as a savage; and as Esquimaux exist in those regions, Englishmen can live too. Let any one who doubts this read, as we have just done for the second time, Franklin, Parry, and Ross; and after reading and meditating over their ac

counts of the Arctic winter, and carefully examining the register of the temperature, say if, with all Sir John Franklin's experience of the Polar Sea, it is probable, or possible, that he has not taken every precaution to guard his men against the rigours of the climate; and if, with the united testimony of those men on the subject, you still continue incredulous, you have only to look how men gradually become acclimatised to the burning sun of Africa or India, and then decide whether it is not probable that each successive winter has not fitted the missing crews of the Franklin Expedition more and more for the severities of the climate.

By a reference to Dové's climatemaps, it will be found that the commonly received opinion, that with ascending latitudes there is a proportional decrease of temperature, is wrong; and the direction of the isothermal lines show that there is a higher temperature in the region at the north-eastern portion of Asia than in any other part of the Polar basin. On the question of climate, then, we have no hesitation in saying that Sir John Franklin and his fellow-voyagers were perfectly well able to stand even the intense cold we have mentioned; and how much greater should be our hopes of their safety, when the probabilities are so strongly in favour of our missing countrymen having penetrated to that open sea (to which we now know of four modes of access), and, in its comparatively mild climate, spent the last five years.

The natural resources of the Arctic Ocean, and of its archipelago of islands and adjacent continents, are a very important feature in this interesting question. Those brown rocks and icy seas have been stored, by the bounteous hand of God, with a profusion of animal life almost exceeding what he gives to man under the glow and brightness of the tropical sun. From the minute medusæ to the gigantic whale, the abundance of animal life is astonishing; and it is to this we look for food to supply the wants of the voyagers. We are aware that, a very high authority, Mr. Lovell Reeve, is sceptical on this point; but even without noticing the well-known and authenticated account of the Russian sailors who lived in Spitzbergen for

* "Ross's Second Voyage," pages 500 and 508.

The Es

quimaux live in those very regions without any great struggle for existence, and we cannot imagine that Franklin and his crews, well armed, and with a plentiful supply of ammunition, cannot procure for themselves that food which the Creator has put it into the power of the savage to obtain; and this thought naturally brings us to the consideration of the third reason for our hope that the missing voyagers are still alive, namely, the peculiar advantages they possessed with their ships, their stores, and their clothing.

more than six years, the recent voyages as Sir Roderick Murchison and Profesand travels to those countries prove sor Owen agreed in observing, "there is that there is abundance of food, easily no ground for apprehension." to be procured.* The fierce and dangerous polar bear, the conflicts with which animal form so exciting a portion of Arctic voyages, will, doubtless, supply the seamen of the Erebus and Terror, not only with food, but with warm clothing; the rein-deer in summer visits the most northern regions, and our men could then procure food for their winter consumption. The rein-deer have been seen in large numbers passing over the ice from Melville Island to the American continent; and there is good reason to believe that the musk-ox will be found in the islands beyond Wellington Channel, as it occurs widely spread over all those as yet discovered and explored.

Among the smaller mammalia, the Arctic fox is to be met with in abundance, and Parry mentions that its flesh resembles kid. They are easily taken; and the records of every expedition show that, if necessary, they could be captured in much greater numbers. Besides all this, the various species of whales, walrus, and seals, will supply the men with food, of a coarse kind, it is true, but yet quite eatable; and also with what is not less important, oil to keep their lamps burning through the midnight darkness of the long-continued Arctic winter. The ocean, too, will doubtless yield to Franklin, as it did to Ross, abundance of fish at certain seasons, and salmon and herrings will be a welcome addition to their food.f But it is to the feathered race that we chiefly look for the supply needed; gulls, petrels, shearwaters and ducks, are found in great flocks, while grouse and ptarmigan are abundant in some of the islands. Taking all these facts into consideration, as Mr. Petermann stated in his admirable paper before the British Association last month, there is every reason to believe that Franklin, with the Erebus and Terror, after passing Wellington Channel, found himself in that portion of the Arctic Ocean where animal life is most abundant, and where it does not decrease with the latitude; and that, therefore, on the question of food,

In their well-provisioned ships, Franklin and his companions have had comforts, and luxuries, and appliances for procuring, dressing, and cooking their food, unknown to the wandering Esquimaux or untutored Greenlander. Their ships have probably afforded them a shelter and a home; and even should they have been wrecked, out of their remains they could construct huts far superior to the snow cabin of the uneducated savage. The rivers which empty themselves into the Arctic Ocean bring down, also, numerous trees, and a quantity of smaller driftwood, thus supplying them with abundance of fuel. With arms and ammunition, with tools and machinery, with a certain supply of good preserved food, and those chances of obtaining more on which we have been dwelling, it is folly to think that the crews of the Erebus and Terror have perished either from the severity of the climate or from want of food.

A sudden and unforeseen catastrophe may have destroyed both vessels, and the crews may have been lost in a moment; but the probabilities are against this supposition-one vessel may have been lost, and yet the other remain in safety: one party may have perished, and the other be still alive-there is nothing, we repeat, to discourage us from renewed expeditions in search of those gallant and persevering men.

We know that many are very apprehensive of the effects of that dire plague of northern voyagers-the scurvy; but,

* See "Rea's Journey." He was able to supply all his party with sufficient food by his own efforts.

t "Ross's Second Voyage," page 587.

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