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[bold] Sir John Franklin's Expedition.
[centered] Letter From Capt. M'Clintock
The following is an extract from a reply by Capt. M'Clinteck to some queries addressed to him by Mr. Selby of Spalding:
DUBLIN, Oct. 17, 1859
In my published report I simply stated the leading facts of our discoveries. There was not room to express opinions; besides which, I wished that all interested readers should draw their own inferences. The boat was only sixty-five miles from the township, and I believe it to have been returning for more provisions. The two skeletons found in it were probably boat-keepers-men unable to march with the others, all of whom I suppose to have proceeded for the short remaining distance without the boat. [underlined] There was ammunition in abundance, but the country-the early spring,at least, when our countrymen were there--affords no game whatever. Even Esquimaux cannot live there.
With regard to provisions, you will observe that I mentioned chocolate, tea, and tobacco. It is clear that these alone will no sustain life. You are doubles aware that an unusually large quantity of solid animal food is necessary even to [left margin all the way down has poor positioning, [unreadable will be entered at each juncture]men in vigorous health, in cold climates. Had the country been capable of sustaining natives, not one of these traces would have remained for us to gather up.
With respect to an overland expedition, you may recollect that such was sent out by the Admiralty under a Hudson's Bay officer. Mr. Andersen, in 1855, in preference to a naval expedition [missing text word] Barrow's Strait. Mr. A. descended the Black River to its mouth, and discovered traces of Europeans upon Montreal Island. Therefore I do not think further records would be found by a second expedition over the same ground. You will observe that my first care was to reach Montreal Island and Point Ogle, where Andersen's search [missing word] and after re-examining those positions, complete the search from thence to where the [missing word] people landed from their ships. The greater part of this painfully interesting route was gone over three times-twice by Lieut. Hobson and once by myself. [underline] The natives repeatedly told us that all of the white people had died.
I am, yours very sincerely, F.L. M'CLINTOCK
To: F.T. SELBY, Esq.
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[bold and centered] THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
RETURN OF THE STEAMER BOX-THE ARCTIC MYSTERY SOLVED-DATE OF FRANKLINS DEATH. [end centering and bold].
The screw-steamer Fox, Capt. McClintock sent by Lady Franklin to the Arctic regions in search of the traces of Sir John Franklin's expedition, had returned to England, having been completey successful.
At Point William, on the north-west coast of King William's Island, a record was found dated April 23, 1848 signed by the CAPTAINS CROZIER and FITZJAMES. The record says that the Erebus and Terror were abandoned three days previously in the ice, five leagues to the N.N.W., and that the survivors, in all amounting to 105, were proceeding to the Great Fish River. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN had died June 11, 1847, and the total deaths to date ha been nine officers and fifteen men.
Many deeply interesting relics of the expedition were found of the expedition were found on the western shore of King William's Island, and others were obtained from the Esquimaux, who stated, that after their abandonment, one ship was crushed in the ice and sunk, and the other forced on shore, where she remained.
The Fox was unable to penetrate beyond Bellot Straits, and wintered in Brentford Bay.
Minute and interesting details of the expedition are published.
Several skeletons of FRANKLIN'S men, large [several missing words] clothing, & etc..and a duplicate record up to the [missing words] of the ships, was discovered.
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[centered] [underline] NEWS FROM EUROPE.
[underlined THE CANADA AT HALIFAX
A PEACE TO BE SIGNED AT ZURICH.
THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN ASCERTAINED.
GENERAL AND FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE,
SACKVILLE, N.B., Thursday, Oct. 7. The Royal Mail steamship Canada, Capt. Lang, left Liverpool at 3P.M. on the 24th, and arrived at Halifax at 11 A.M. of Thursday, the 6th inst.
The Canada reports, Sept, 29, lat, 53o 28'N, long. 28o 54'W., at 10:30 A.M., passed Royal Mail steamship Europa.
The steamer [italics] City of Washington [end italics]from New-York, arrived at Liverpool at 11 P.M. on the 21st.
The steamer Ariel, from New-York, arrived at Southampton on the night of the 23rd.
The ship [italics] Joshua Quincy,[end italics] from Leghorn for Boston, was abandoned at sea on the 4th of September, leaking badly, The crew had reached Liverpool per ship [italics]Eddystone, [end italics] as had also a small portion of the cargo.
[centered] THE ZURICH CONFERENCE
A PEACE TO BE CONCLUDED ON THE VILLAFRANCA
BASIS - SARDINIA DECLINES TO BE A PARTY.
[italics] The London Morning Herald [ end italics]gives prominence to the following paragraph:
"We have reason to believe that a definitive treaty of peace will soon be concluded at Zurich. It will, however, bear the signatures of only two powers-France and Austria. The preliminaries of Villafranca will be strictly maintained. As to the relations of Austria and Sardinia, we learn from Vienna that the prelimenaries of Villafranca will serve as a guide for the conduct of Austria."
A Berlin telegram says a courier from Vienna had reached Zurich with instructions to draw up a treaty of peace, and a document for the cession of Lombardy to Sardinia. No allusion is made to the Duchies. It is hoped that a treaty will be signed in a few days.
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[centered] Letter from Robt. Kennicott.
Through the kindness of Mr. J.M. Woodworth, Curator of the Museum of the Chicago academy of Science, we are permitted to publish the following interesting letter from our young townsman, Robert Kennicott, now on a tour of scientific research in the Arctic regions: [centered] FORT SIMPSON, MACKENZIE RIVER DISTRICT.
Hudson Bay Co.'s Territory,
Nov 10th 1859
At Portage La Loche is twelve miles across and divides the waters of Lake Winnepeg from those of the Arctic Ocean. I started from this place on the first of August, and we arrived here about the 15th, having floated on the large rivers at night and sailed a good part of the night and sailed a good part of the way. The voyage up takes three times as long. From Portage LaLoche we rowed two days and a half down the Clear Water River to Elk River, through very beautiful scenery. The Clear Water is a narrow and crooked stream with many rapids and sand-bars, the shores mostly rocky, with high hills rising beyond them. Athabasca River below the mouth of the Clear Water is one to one and a half miles wide, but shallow and with numerous low islands and sandbars. The water is quite turpid and it runs through an alluvial soil above, ad it does all the way below the point we entered at. [2 words missing]Fifty or one hundred miles below the mouth of the Clear Water, the shores rise into high hills but farther down the country within sight is a shallow, and its appearance brings trongly to mind that of the lower Mississippi. The piles of drift-wood, the balsam poplars which line the shores and looked very like cottonwood, and the turbidity of the water rendering the semblance very strong. Many of the trees brought down by the spring freshets are very large, and evidently grew far up near the Rocky Mountains to the southwest. At its debouchere Elk River flows through an immense marsh, which, like Lake Athabasca in that part, contains numerous low Islands without rocks and piled with drift wood, affording a strange and dismal prospect. The north east shore of the lake which is here only fifteen or twenty miles wide, is however, high and rocky -the rocky bay near the foot of the lake. Thence passed down a narrow and rapid stream 60 [missing words]701 [inked out phrase] miles long called [illegible] [missing words] Slave River. The latter resembles the lower [missing word] of Elk river but is deeper and wider: it [missing word] turbid. From Ft. Resolution on Slave Lake coasted around the south west side of the [missing word] to the head of Mackenzie River, down [missing word] rowed, sailed and floated in two days [missing word] Simpson, the Mackenzie is a magnificent[missing word] deep, rather rapid and averaging over [missing word] in width; the shores are high, 56ft or [missing word]but the country back is not hilly within [missing word] the river. In spring, when the ice is [missing word] up, the water rises some 40 feet above the current level. The water is clear above [missing word] turbid at this point by the entrance [missing word] Liard, a large river rising n the Rocky Mountains and entering the MacKenzie at [missing word] There are no impassible rapid [missing word] MacKenzie, and a steamer could [missing word] from the ocean to Slave Lake. The [missing word] fell at Ft. Simpson early in October [missing word]began to drift in the river a little after [missing word] of the month.
About the first of [[November,?]] temperature fell to zero and before [missing word] was once 26 below. The coldest ever [missing word] here was 62 deg below, but weather [missing word] below is not uncommon. Snow falls [missing word] to the depth of three or four [missing word] river breaks up late in May or first [missing word]. Slave Lake is sometimes not open [missing word] though generally by June 20th. The[[sun rises?]] here now after 9 a.m. and sets before [missing word]
I dress pretty much in the [missing word] country- wear Indian shoes, of [missing word]or more pairs of Daffle socks inside [missing word] cold weather, I wore a pair of [missing word] breeches, with fringe [italic] a la savage[/italic] [missing word[ fastened by grizzly bears' claws [missing word] [[appreciably?]] fatter, but far stronger [missing word] than when I left home. Last [missing word] with one savage, who didn't [[know?]] English, to make a line of [missing words] were gone five days with the ten [missing words] zero most of the time, and [missing words] degrees below on the last day [missing words] provisions consisted only of [missing words] I was dressed to warmer than [missing words] home for a cold day's ride in [missing words]had only two blankets, one [missing words] We used to get together a big [missing words]make a [missing words]
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windward; and here I would [missing words]or so of dried meat, a good part clean [missing words]washed down with a quart of tea; after the [missing words]"nigger-head tobacco," and then laying one blanket under [missing words]with the other and a small one of the [missing words]Savages over us, we'd lay down to [missing words]to sleep with our feet to the fire, till their getting cold would awaken us to renew the supply of wood. I did not feel very cold while covered by the blankets at least, though, when standing with my back to the fires, so close as to scorch my leggings, my breath froze on my beard and hairs. Now I feel quite well pleased at my getting up [missing word] on so comfortably. Twelve months since, at home, I think I would actually have perished from such exposure. To-day, with the temperature 26 degrees below zero, I walk out with the bare hands and a light coat, feeling the cold less severely than I have done at home during equal exposure to a temperature above zero. So you see I don't intend to freeze to death.
I spent three weeks during September and October in making a trip to Ft. Liard River, which empties into the Mackenzie here. Saw one moose, but couldn't get a shot [missing words]a Canada lynx-put a ball clean through him. We were for some days passing along a spur of the Rocky Mountains, on which were plenty of mountain sheep, though I saw none. Got beaver's tail and a moose nose of the Indians, as well as plenty of fresh moose meat. Had a jolly time. Went up in a boat and floated down, with two Indians, in a small canoe--running the rapids in fine style, and sleeping at night in most rascally camps, on frozen ground and rock, with a scanty supply of fire wood. But all these little discomforts, when taken as a matter of course, don't trouble one much after a little. It is most egregious error to suppose people at the north are industrious, I was never in so lazy a community in my life. If anybody asks another to help him a bit, or to perform some necessary duty, the reply is, "Wait a bit till I have a smoke," and after that is done the other will find it necessary to have a smoke too, and so on. We live much better tan would be expected, having a good supply of tea, sugar, milk and plenty of good potatoes; at present we get only dry moose meat and fish but hope for fresh meat soon. I can eat clear fat at and astounding rate, especially when camping out, and I think I shall readily drink a pint of melted moose tallow on Christmas, as I promised I would make a note of this physiological fact, that the muscles of my jaws are developing in an extraordinary manner from eating "old Indian," (dry moose meat). It is so tough as to demand violent exercise from the jaws.
The Esquimaux, last fall, gave Mr. Ross some swords and a ship's copper that undoubtedly came from the wreck of Franklin's ship. I hope to secure some relics. Nothing definite is yet learned respecting Franklin's fate, though circumstantial evidence proves pretty strongly that his ship was crushed in the ice or at any rate deserted. When the company's is established on the Anderson, in the Barren Grounds, for trade with the Esquimaux, the whole matter will doubles be learned from them.
My collections, though not large, will, I am sure, prove highly interesting to naturalists generally. I have obtained in all some 500 vertebrates and several thousand invertebrates all of which, from such a locality, must be more or less valuable. I have a number of vertebrates not in any American museum; several described by Richardson but never found since, and at least two or three never mentioned at all by him. Of insects, snails and crustacean, I hope I have still more unknown species. But I have not yet a really fair opportunity to collect. I arrived here too late in the season. Next spring, on Slave Lake, I hope to get more in one month of June than all I've collected hitherto on my journey.
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[handwritten HARPER'S WEEKLY Nov 5/59
A NEW ARCTIC EXPEDITION.
Our latest English files intimate that a new Arctic expedition will probably be shortly organized and dispatched to the mouth of Back River and Montreal Island. It will be borne in mind by the reader of our brief history of the Franklin Expedition and its successors, published in the last number of the Weekly, that no actual evidence has ever been obtained of the death of the last survivors of the 105 men who departed from King William's Land, under Captain Crozier, to make their way to the continent. (It is now intimated that some of these men be alive among the Esquimaux at or near Montreal Island; and it is argued that it is due to humanity to make one more voyage expressly for the purpose of ascertain whether or not this be the case.
Recent experience proves that an Arctic expedition need not involve any actual expenditure of life. To undertake an Arctic voyage, even among the "congeries" of islands lying north of the American continent, it is necessary to have a small screw steamer, well-built and adapted for Arctic voyages amply provided with every appliance and supply requisite for life in the Arctic regions, and manned by thirty to forty men-not more. [underlined] Such a craft, it is believed, could, in two seasons, effect such an exploration of Montreal Island and the outlet of Back River as would forever set at rest the possiblity of there being any survivors of the Franklin Expedition. If any of the hundred and five still live, such an expedition would rescue them from an ignoble death among the Esquimaux. If they are all dead, it would set at rest harrowing doubts which still distress their families[end underline]
These are the arguments upon the strength of which influential Englishmen are urging their Government to fit out one more last expedition; we should not be surprised to hear of their success. There are always numbers of adventurous spirits who would be glad to engage in another Arctic voyage merely for the sake of the peril and [italics] éclat[end italics] of the affair. The cost would not be great. And, after all, though common sense is opposed to more sacrifice of life and energy in the Arctic [italics] cul-de-sac, the spirit of the age will not permit any one to fence off a part of the globe and close it to the daring tread of the audacious sons of Japheth.
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THE FRANKLIN RELICS.
In our last week's impression we gave at page 25, an account of the Franklin relics, now exhibited at the United Service Institution. We this week give a page engraving depicting these articles, of so much interest to the public, with full particulars as to what the represent. By taking this page engraving with him, and following the order here indicated, the visitor will be enabled to dispense with any other catalogue. We have nothing further to add to the catalogue. We have nothing further to add to the catalogue which appeared in our lst week's number respecting these relics save the following letter from Captain M'Clintock in reply to some queries addressed to him by Mr. Selby, of Spalding: --
"Dublin, Oct.17"
"In my published report I simply stated the leading facts of our discoveries. There was not room to express opinions; besides which I wished that all interested readers should draw their own inferences. The boat was only sixty-five miles from the ship, and I believe it to have been returning for more provisions. The two skeletons found in it were probably the boat-keepers--men unable to march with the other, all of whom I suppose to have proceeded for the short remaining distance without the boat. There was ammunition in abundance, but the country--the early spring, at least, when our countrymen were there --affords no game whatever. Even Esquimaux cannot live there.
"With regard to provisions, you will observe that I mentioned chocolate, tea, and tobacco. It is clear that these alone will not sustain life. You are doubtless aware that an unusually large quantity of solid animal food is necessary, even to men in vigorous health, in cold climates. Had the country been capable of sustaining natives, not one of these traces would have remained for us to gather up.
"With respect to an overland expedition, you may recollect that such a one was sent out by the Admiralty under a Hudson's Bay officer, Mr. Anderson, in 1855 in preference to a naval expedition by Barrows' Strait. Mr. Anderson descended the Black River to its mouth, and discovered traces of Europeans upon Montreal Island. Therefore I do not think further records would be found by a second expedition over the same ground. You will observe that my first care was to reach Montreal Island and Point Ogle, where Anderson's search terminated, and after re-examining those positions to complete the search from thence to where the lost people landed from their ships. The greater Part of this painfully interesting route was gone over three times--twice by Lieutenant Hobson, and once by myself. The natives repeatedly told us that all the white people had died.
"I am yours very sincerely,
"F.L. M'CLINTOCK."
"To F.T. Selby, Esq."
