A few miles beyond Cape Herschel the land becomes very low; many islets and shingle-ridges lie far off the coast; and as we advanced we met with hummocks of unusually heavy ice, showing plainly that we were now travelling upon a far more exposed part of the coast-line. We were approaching a spot where a revelation of intense interest was awaiting me.
INTEREST ATTACHING TO THE CAIRN.
About 12 miles from Cape Herschel I found a small cairn built by Hobson's party, and containing a note for me. He had reached this his extreme point, six days previously, without having seen anything of the wreck, or of natives, but he had found a record—the record so ardently sought for, of the Franklin Expedition—at Point Victory, on the N.W. coast of King William's Land.
DISCOVERY OF GORE'S RECORD.
That record is indeed a sad and touching relic of our lost friends, and, to simplify its contents, I will point out separately the double story it so briefly tells. In the first place, the record paper was one of the printed forms usually supplied to discovery ships for the purpose of being enclosed in bottles and thrown overboard at sea, in order to ascertain the set of the currents, blanks being left for the date and position; any person finding one of these records is requested to forward it to the Secretary of the Admiralty, with a note of time and place; and this request is printed upon it in six different languages. Upon it was written, apparently by Lieutenant Gore, as follows:—
GORE'S RECORD.
| "28 of May, 1847. | { | H.M. ships 'Erebus' and 'Terror' wintered in the ice in lat. 70° 05' N.; long. 98° 23' W. |
| "Having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island, in lat. 74° 43' 28" N.,long. 91° 39' 15" W., after having ascended Wellington Channel tolat. 77°, and returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island. | ||
| "Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. | ||
| "All well. | ||
| "Party consisting of 2 officers and 6 men left the ships on Monday24th May, 1847. | ||
| "Gm. Gore, Lieut. | ||
| "Chas. F. Des Vœux, Mate." | ||
There is an error in the above document, namely, that the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' wintered at Beechey Island in 1846-7,—the correct dates should have been 1845-6; a glance at the date at the top and bottom of the record proves this, but in all other respects the tale is told in as few words as possible of their wonderful success up to that date, May, 1847.
We find that, after the last intelligence of Sir John Franklin was received by us (bearing date of July, 1845), from the whalers in Melville Bay, that his Expedition passed on to Lancaster Sound, and entered Wellington Channel, of which the southern entrance had been discovered by Sir Edward Parry in 1819. The 'Erebus' and 'Terror' sailed up that strait for one hundred and fifty miles, and reached in the autumn of 1845 the same latitude as was attained eight years subsequently by H.M.S. 'Assistance' and 'Pioneer.' Whether Franklin intended to pursue this northern course, and was only stopped by ice in that latitude of 77° north, or purposely relinquished a route which seemed to lead away from the known seas off the coast of America, must be a matter of opinion; but this the document assures us of, that Sir John Franklin's Expedition, having accomplished this examination, returned southward from latitude 77° north, which is at the head of Wellington Channel, and re-entered Barrow's Strait by a new channel between Bathurst and Cornwallis Islands.
Seldom has such an amount of success been accorded to an Arctic navigator in a single season, and when the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' were secured at Beechey Island for the coming winter of 1845-6, the results of their first year's labor must have been most cheering. These results were the exploration of Wellington and Queen's Channel, and the addition to our charts of the extensive lands on either hand. In 1846 they proceeded to the south-west, and eventually reached within twelve miles of the north extreme of King William's Land, when their progress was arrested by the approaching winter of 1846-7. That winter appears to have passed without any serious loss of life; and when in the spring Lieutenant Gore leaves with a party for some especial purpose, and very probably to connect the unknown coast-line of King William's Land between Point Victory and Cape Herschel, those on board the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' were "all well," and the gallant Franklin still commanded.