In 1825, Captain d'Urville was sent by Charles X. of France upon a voyage similar to those performed by Freycinet and Duperrey. As we have already had occasion to say, this officer was fortunate enough to return to France with the positive proofs of the destruction of the vessels of Lapérouse upon the island of Vanikoro. He surveyed the whole of the Feejee archipelago, and restored upon French maps its native name of Viti. The results of d'Urville's labors are comprised in twelve octavo volumes, sixty-three charts, twelve plans, eight hundred and sixty-six designs representing the various island nations, their arms, dwellings, &c., and four hundred landscapes and marine views. Admiral d'Urville ranks as the first French navigator of this century.
In 1830, two rich shipping-merchants of London, by the name of Enderby, sent Captain Biscoe to the Antarctic Ocean to fish for seals, in the brig Tula and the cutter Lively, giving him directions to seek for land in high southern latitudes. In February, 1831,—being then as far south as the sixty-ninth parallel and in 12° west,—he saw distinct and positive signs of land. On the 27th, in 66° of latitude and 47° of longitude, he convinced himself of the existence of a long reach of land; but huge islands of ice prevented his approaching it. The magnificence of the aurora australis, appearing now under the forms of grand architectural columns and now as the fringes of tapestry, drew the attention of the sailors so constantly towards the heavens that they neglected to watch the ship's track amid mountains of floating and tumbling ice. Captain Biscoe gave to the discovery the name of Enderby's Land. Farther to the west he discovered an island, which he named Adelaide, in honor of the Queen of England. It presents an imposing appearance,—a tall peak burying itself in the clouds and often peering out above them. Its base is surrounded with a dazzling girdle of snow and ice, which extends, though sapped and excavated by the action of the waves, some nine hundred feet into the sea.
In 1836, the English Government appointed Captain George Back—who had lately been upon a land-expedition in the American Arctic regions in search of Captain and Commander Ross—to the since celebrated ship Terror, for the purpose of determining the western coast-line of Prince Regent's Inlet. The voyage, though entirely unsuccessful, is one of the most remarkable on record,—showing as it did a power of resistance and endurance in a ship which till then was not believed to belong either to iron or heart of oak. Back proceeded no farther than Baffin's Bay, the Terror remaining for ten months fast in the gripe of its "cradle" or "ice-wagon," as the men called the huge floating berg upon which she rested. He was knighted on his return, and his sturdy ship was put out of commission and docked. It is a subject of regret that so splendid a specimen of marine architecture, as far as strength and solidity are concerned, should have met the fate which she has encountered. Where she is no mortal knows, except perhaps a few inaccessible Esquimaux; for she has perished with her lost consort, the Erebus, and their hapless commander, Sir John Franklin.
In the year 1838, on the 23d of April, two ocean-steamers—the first with the exception of the Savannah—entered the harbor of New York. They were the Sirius and the Great Western. They had been expected, and their arrival was the signal for general rejoicings and the theme of universal congratulation. Crowds of people—men, women, and children—assembled along the wharves to view the unwonted spectacle. The Sirius was a vessel of seven hundred tons and three hundred and twenty horse-power, and had previously plied between Liverpool and Cork. She had left the latter port on the 4th of April, and had therefore been nineteen days upon the passage. The Great Western was a new ship: she was of thirteen hundred and forty tons; her extreme length was two hundred and thirty-six feet; her depth of hold, twenty-three feet; breadth of beam, thirty-five feet; diameter of wheels, twenty-eight feet; length of paddle-boards, ten feet; diameter of cylinder, six feet; length of stroke, seven feet. She had four boilers, and could carry eight hundred tons of coal,—sufficient for twenty-six days' consumption. She had left Bristol on the 8th of April, and had accomplished the voyage in fifteen days and five hours. Her mean daily rate was two hundred and forty miles, or nine miles an hour, with unfavorable weather and strong head winds. She was expected to stop either at the Azores or at Halifax, but succeeded in making the passage direct. She consumed but four hundred and fifty tons of coal out of six hundred. This event was looked upon by all as an earnest of the complete triumph of ocean steam-navigation; and the Great Western is regarded by the people of the two countries as the pioneer ship among the many noble vessels that have plied upon the great Atlantic ferry. The Britannia—the first vessel of the Cunard line to cross the ocean—arrived at Boston on the 18th of July, 1840, after a passage of fourteen days and eight hours.
In this same year, (1838,) the United States' Exploring Expedition,—consisting of the Vincennes, a sloop-of-war of twenty guns, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander-in-chief; the Peacock, eighteen-gun sloop-of-war, William L. Hudson, commanding; the Porpoise, ten-gun brig; the Relief, exploring vessel; and the schooners Flying-Fish and Sea-Gull,—sailed from Hampton Roads. Its objects were to explore the Southern and Pacific Oceans; to ascertain, if possible, the situation of that part of the Antarctic continent supposed to lie to the south of New Holland, and to make researches and surveys of importance to ships navigating the Polynesian seas. The squadron was absent four years, and accomplished a vast amount of arduous labor interesting to science and invaluable to commerce. We propose to speak only of what became afterwards its prominent feature,—the supposed discovery of an Antarctic continent.
On the 15th of February, 1840, land was seen in longitude 106° 40' E. and latitude 65° 57' S. The next day the ships were within seven miles of it, and, "by measurement, the extent of the coast of the Antarctic continent then in sight was made seventy-five miles." The men landed on an ice-island, where they found stones, boulders, gravel, sand, and clay. Everybody wished to possess a piece of the Antarctic continent; and many fragments of red sandstone and basalt were carried away. The island was believed to have been detached from the neighboring land. Subsequent voyages, however, have thrown great doubts upon the accuracy of these assertions. James Clarke Ross, who was sent with the Erebus and Terror, in 1839, to the South Pole, was informed at Van Diemen's Land of Wilkes' alleged discovery. He reached the spot in January, 1841, and, instead of an Antarctic continent, found water five hundred fathoms deep. The existence of such a continent, therefore, must be regarded as altogether hypothetical. "It is natural," says the London Athenæum, "that a commander of his country's first scientific expedition should wish to make the most of it; but Science is so august in her nature and so severe in her rules that she declines recording in her archives any sentence as truth on which there rests the slightest liability of doubt: in all such cases she prefers the Scotch verdict,—'Not proven.'"
Though at this period the discovery of a Northwest Passage—if one existed—was no longer expected to afford a short and commodious commercial route to the Indies and to China, yet the scientific and romantic interest of the subject still exerted a powerful effect on both nations and Governments. Great Britain resolved to make one last attempt, and, selecting two vessels whose fame was now world-wide, appointed Sir John Franklin to their command,—the Erebus being his flag-ship, with Captain Crozier, as his second, in the Terror. The officers and crew, all told, numbered one hundred and thirty-eight picked and resolute men. The instructions given to Franklin were to proceed, with a store-ship ordered to accompany him, as far up Davis' Straits as that vessel could safely go, there to transfer her provisions and send her home. He was then to get into Baffin's Bay, enter Lancaster Sound, thread Barrow's Straits, and follow Parry's track due west to Melville Island, in the Polar Sea. Here the instructions, with an assurance which seems incredible now, begged the whole question of a Northwest Passage, and directed him to proceed the remaining nine hundred miles which separate that point from Behring's Strait,—a region which it was hoped would be found free from obstruction. He was not to stop to examine any opening to the northward, but to push resolutely on to Behring's Strait, and return home by the Sandwich Islands and Panama. He sailed from the Thames on the 19th of May, 1845. He received the store-ship's cargo in Davis' Straits, and then despatched her home. His two ships were seen by a whaler named the Prince of Wales on the 26th of July: they were in the very middle of Baffin's Bay, moored to an iceberg and waiting for open water.
Two years passed away, and, nothing being heard from them, the public anxiety respecting them became very great. The Government determined to attempt their rescue, and sent out three several expeditions in 1848. The two first—one overland to the Polar Sea, under Richardson and Rae, another by Behring's Strait, in the ships Herald and Plover—totally failed of success, as they were founded upon the supposition that Franklin had advanced farther westward than Parry in 1820,—a supposition altogether unlikely. The third—consisting of the Enterprise and Investigator, under Captain Sir James Clarke Ross—was equally unsuccessful, though conducted in a quarter where success was at least possible. At Port Leopold, at the mouth of Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross formed a large depôt of provisions,—the locality having been admirably chosen, being upon Parry's route to the Polar Sea, and upon any track Franklin would be likely to take on his way back, in case he had already advanced beyond it. His men built a house upon shore of their spare spars, and covered it with such canvas as they could dispense with. They lengthened the Investigator's steam-launch, so that it would be capable of carrying Franklin and his crew safely to the whalers' rendezvous, and left it. They then made their way through the ice to Davis' Straits, and arrived in England early in November, 1849.
The probable fate of Franklin now absorbed all minds, and the Admiralty, Parliament, the public, and the press eagerly discussed every theory which would account for his prolonged absence, and every means by which succor could be sent to him. The Admiralty offered a reward of one hundred guineas for accurate information concerning him. Lady Franklin offered the stimulus of £2000, and a second of £3000, to successful search; and the British Government sought to enlist the services of the whalers by announcing a bonus of £20,000. A vessel was sent to land provisions and coal at the entrance to Lancaster Sound. Three new expeditions were sent out in 1850 by the Government, besides one by public subscription, assisted by the Hudson Bay Company, under Sir John Ross, and another by Lady Franklin. They accomplished wonders of seamanship, and their crews endured the most harassing trials; but we have no space to chronicle any thing beyond the finding of a few distinct but unproductive traces of the missing adventurers, which occurred in the following manner: