Remarks upon these Articles.
The spear-staff measures 6 feet 3 inches in length, and appears to have been part of a light boat's gunwale: it measured (before being partially rounded to adapt it to its present use) about 1½ by 13⁄8 inches, is made of English oak, and upon the side has been painted white over green. The spear-head is of steel, riveted to two pieces of hoop, with bone between, and lashed on to the staff. The rivets are of copper nails. The native who sold it said he himself got it from the boat in the Fish River. Another spear of the same kind was seen. The knives are made either of iron or steel, riveted to two strips of hoop, between which the handle of wood is inserted, and rivets passed through, securing them together.
The rivets are almost all made out of copper nails, such as would be found in a copper-fastened boat, but those which have been examined do not bear the Government mark. It is probable that most of the boats of the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' were built by contract, and therefore would not have the broad arrow stamped upon their iron and copper work. One small knife appears to have been a surgical instrument. A large knife obtained in April bears some marking, such as a sword or a cutlass might have. The man who sold it said he bought it from another, who picked it up on the land where the ship was driven ashore by the ice, and where the white people had thrown it away; it was then about as long as his arm. This was the first information he received of one of the ships having drifted on shore. One knife and one file are stamped with the broad arrow. The handles are variously composed of oak, ash, pine, mahogany, elm, and bone. The spoons and forks were readily sold for a few needles each, also the buttons, which they wore as ornaments on their dresses. Bows and arrows were readily exchanged for knives. Previously to the stranding on the neighboring shore of the last expedition these people must have been almost destitute of wood or iron. Some of them had even got only bone knives and spear-points. Some of their sledges were seen, consisting of two rolls of seal-skin, flattened and frozen, to serve as runners, and connected together by cross bars of bones. Many more knives, bows and buttons, similar to those brought away, might have been obtained, but no personal or important relics.
Seen in a Snow-Hut in lat. 70½° deg. N., 20th of April, 1859, not brought away:—
Two wooden shovels, one of them made of mahogany board, some spear-handles and a bow of English wood, a deal case which might have served for a telescope or barometer. Its external dimensions were:—length, 3 ft. 1 in.; depth, 3½ in.; width, 9 in.; two brass hinges remained attached to it.
Relics obtained from the Esquimaux near Cape Norton, upon the East Coast of King William Island, in May, 1859:—
Two tablespoons; upon one is scratched "W. W.," on the other "W. G.;" these bear the Franklin crest; two table forks, one bearing the Franklin crest; the other is also crested, probably Captain Crozier's; silversmith's name is "I. West;" two teaspoons, one engraved "A. M. D." (A. M'Donald), the other bears the Fairholme crest and motto; handle of a dessert knife, into which had been inserted a razor (since broken off) by Milliken, Strand; buttons, wood and iron, were here in abundance, but as enough of these had already been obtained no more were purchased.
Taken out of some deserted snow-huts near here, some scraps of different kinds of wood, such as could not be obtained from a boat—teak or African oak.
Found lying about the skeleton, 9 miles eastward of Cape Herschel, May, 1859:—The tie of black silk neckerchief; fragments of a double-breasted blue cloth waistcoat, with covered silk buttons, and edged with braid; a scrap of a colored cotton shirt, silk covered buttons of blue cloth great-coat, a small clothes-brush, a horn pocket-comb, a leathern pocket-book, which fell to pieces when thawed and dried; it contained 9 or 10 letters, a few leaves apparently blank; a sixpence, date 1831; and a half-sovereign, dated 1844.
Articles seen among the natives at Cape Norton, not purchased,—Bows made of wood, knives, uniform and plain buttons, a sledge made of two long pieces of hard wood.