LIEUTENANT M'CLINTOCK RETURNS.
After an absence of sixty-two days, Lieut. Aldrich, with the "Lady Franklin" sledge, arrived from Byam Martin Channel. He had searched the west coast of Bathurst Island, which tended a little westerly of north until in latitude 76° 155′ N. At that point, the channel was still full twenty miles wide between Bathurst and Melville Islands, and extended northward as far as could be seen. The only things of note observed, were reindeer, in the month of April, on Bathurst Island, and, with the temperature at 60° below freezing-point, they were grazing on moss or lichen; this point placed beyond doubt the fact, which is now incontestable, that the animals of the Parry group do not migrate to the American continent in the winter. On his way back, Lieut. A. fell in with large flocks of wild fowl winging their way northward.
The floes around our ships were entirely covered with the water of the melted snow, in some places full four feet in depth, eating its way rapidly through in all directions, when Lieut. M'Clintock's sledge, the "Perseverance," and the "Resolute" sledge, Dr. Bradford's, hove in sight, having been out exactly eighty days. Lieut. M'Clintock had been to Winter Harbour, and visited all the points known to Parry's squadron, such as Bushman Cove, Cape Dundas, &c.; but of course no traces of Franklin. He had, however, brought a portion of Parry's last wheel, used in his journey, and substantial proofs of the extraordinary abundance of animal life in that remote region, in the hides and heads of musk-oxen, the meat of which had helped to bring back his crew in wonderful condition. Eighty head of oxen and reindeer had been counted by Mr. M'Clintock, and he could have shot as many as he pleased. Dr. Bradford's journey was not so cheering a one. He had been early knocked up from a fall,—serious symptoms threatened, and for nearly a month the gallant officer was dragged upon his sledge; carrying out—thanks to his own pluck, and the zeal of his men—the object of his journey,—the search of the eastern side of Melville Island. We were now all in: Lieut. M'Clintock had fairly won the palm,—"palmam qui meruit ferat;" in eighty days he had travelled eight hundred miles, and heartily did we congratulate him on his success.
The day following, July 7th, I and one of the officers of the "Pioneer" started to visit Penny's expedition: he was expected back, and we longed to hear the news; Captain Penny having last been reported to have reached the water with a sound boat, a good crew, and a month's provisions. Landing at Cape Martyr, wet up to our necks with splashing through the pools of water, nowhere less than knee-deep, and often a mile in extent, we did not willingly leave the dry land again. On ascending a slope which gave us a view of the south shore of Cornwall's Island as far as Cape Hotham, and near a point known as that whence the dog-sledges in the winter used to strike off when communicating with the ships, our astonishment was great at finding the ice of Barrow's Strait to have broken up;—the gray light of the morning, and the perfect calm, prevented us seeing to what extent, but there was plenty of it, and a sea again gladdened our eyesight. Oh! it was a joyous, exhilarating sight, after nine months of eternal ice and snow.
DISAPPEARANCE OF ICE.
The ground flew under our feet as, elevated in spirits, we walked rapidly into Assistance Bay, and grasped by the hand our old friends of the "Lady Franklin." We had each our tale to recount, our news to exchange, our hopes and disappointments to prose over. One thing was undoubtedly certain,—that, on May 16th, Captain Penny had discovered a great extent of water northward of Cornwallis Island: that this same water prevented Captain Stewart, of the "Sophia," from passing some precipitous cliffs, against which a heavy sea was beating: that this same sea was clear of all but sea-washed ice, and no floes were to be seen. Moreover, owing to a southerly breeze, which blew away to seaward the ice over which Dr. Goodsir had advanced to the westward, his retreat was nearly endangered by the water obliging him with his sledge to take to the neighbouring heights: and all this, a month before any thing like a disruption had taken place in Barrow's Strait. This latter event, it seems, took place about the 25th of June, 1851; and, on the 28th June, the commander of the "Sophia" had gone in a whale-boat from the entrance of the harbour to Wellington Channel.
Three days after our arrival at Assistance Harbour, not a particle of ice was to be seen, east or west, in Barrow's Strait, looking from the highland on the east side of the anchorage, except between Griffith's Island and Cape Martyr, where, some ten miles from the water, and in the centre of a fixed floe, our unlucky squadron was jammed. Every where else a clear sea spread itself, sparkling and breaking under a fresh southerly breeze. Some individuals, who had visited Cape Hotham, reported the water in Wellington Channel to have made up as high as Barlow Inlet, beyond which, up to the north water, a floe still intervened.
In default of Penny's arrival, I was much interested in a journey, upon which Mr. John Stuart, surgeon of the "Lady Franklin," had been despatched to follow the traces of some of Franklin's sledges, towards Caswell's Tower, and to re-examine the traces found in 1850. The sledge-tracts, which I have elsewhere alluded to, as existing on the east side of "Erebus and Terror Bay," Mr. Stuart found, as we conjectured, to have been those of some exploring party, sent from Beechey Island to Caswell's Tower, in Radstock Bay; for at the base of the said tower—a remarkable detached mass of limestone—two carefully-constructed cairns were found, but no record in them; beyond this, no farther signs of the missing navigators were found—nothing whatever that could indicate a retreating party. That these cairns were placed to attract attention, appears certain; the most conspicuous points have been chosen for them; they are well and carefully built, evidently not the mere work of an idle hour.
Failing Penny, and his intelligence, I contented myself with visiting the neighbourhood of Assistance Harbour, and with observing the various phenomena connected with the dissolution of the winter ice and snow upon the land; and, of these, none was more interesting than the breaking out of the ravines, which, having filled with snow during the winter, had formed, during the previous fortnight, into large lakes of water, sometimes of acres in extent; and then, in one moment, the barriers which had pent up the ravines gave way, and, with irresistible force, the waters rushed over every obstacle to the sea. Three large ravines broke open whilst I was in Assistance Harbour, and the thundering sound of the ice, water, and shingle, which swept down, and soon cut a broad channel for many yards through the floe in the bay, was a cheering tune to the gallant fellows who were looking forward to being released from their winter imprisonment. Within twenty-four hours the body of water in these ravines would release itself, and an almost dry water-course be left. Nothing in the shape of a river seemed to exist in this island—rather a remarkable fact, considering its size, and the immense quantity of snow annually thawed in its interior valleys and plains.
ASSISTANCE HARBOUR.