Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1869-09-30
Sir John FrAMklln-Tho Strange Story
from California.
Tho Trihune has tho fo)low;no.


Is. The report from San Francisco of the
discovery ON the California coast OF q
rebetd of the Franklin expedition supposed
to, hnvo boon thrown overheard among tho
ttOzen' waters Of tho Arctic circle, and after
oFenty-one years to have been cast ashore
something like 5000 miles from tho place
whore it was launched is full of melan-
choly interest," though there liz little proba-
.hility that tho document, oven Ruthentic,.
will add much to what VIC already know
OF tho last days of Frunkliu,n gallant band.
in all likelihood the record ia merely a
duplicate of tho one which McClintock
discovered on King Williams Island in
1860. Sir Leopold, it will be remembered,
found there the only authentic account Of
Frnnklin's fnte which, up to tho present
time, has over reached us. In a cairn,
erected twenty eight years before by Sir
John Ross, he found, incloscd in q
tin case record of Sir Johns
last cruise ny to tho 25th Of April. 184s.
Franklin had died on the 18th
of Juno, 1847. The ships Erebus and Ter
ror had been frozen in for nineteen months
and the survivors Of the crew, 105 in num-
ber, under command Of Capt. Crozier, had
abandoned them and set out over land for
the Great Fish river of British North Amer
lea. McClintock heard from tho Esqui-
maux how tho white men had ono by one
dropped down and died on tho way. Ho
found the skeletons Of two or three, with
their abandoned sledges, boats, and guns;
he satisfied himself that tho remainder had
straits, and their bones had been lost in
the waters when the short summer thaw sat
iu; and though there has since been q r,l-
NOR that Crozier and some of his men were
alive several years later among the Esqui-
mailx, and may even yet be wandering in
those inaccessible regions where tho foot
Of no other civilized man has ever trod,
there can be little doubt that McClintock's
conclusions were justified, and that no la
ter record Of the most memorable of all
Arctic voyages will ever reach ~.
The document said to have been found
on the California coast appenlB to have
boon written, as TINT found on King Will
liam's Island WAS, on one Of the printed
forms furnished by the British Admiralty
to all discovery ships, for the purpose of
being inclossd in bottles and thrown over
board in order to ascertain tho direction of
ocean currents. So exact indeed, Judging
from the telegraphic report, Is its resem.
blance to the McClintock relic. that we
should have little hesitation in pronounc-
ing it forgery inspired by that document,
we're 1t not probable that forger would
have invented some. variation, and given
the record later date. The latitude is the
same az that in which Crozier deposited
the writing In the tin case; the longitude
differs by ten seconds, Crozier giving % 10
4 min. Is sec., and the California report 90
deg 4 min. 5 seo-hut this discrepancy
may be owing to telegraphic blunder.
| If this waif was really committed to the
waves by tho crews of the Erebus and
Terror when they sot out upon their awful
land journey in the spring of 1S48, it must
have aoated through that Northwest Pass,
age which so many lives and so many years
Of heroism were expended in seeking, and
which it is now. known that Franklin; was
the first to discover, though the knowledge
of it WAS not brought back to the civilized
world until Sir. Leopold McC liptock return
cd from his search. 1t must have. floate,l
through Behring's Strait, been. tossed
about the shores Of British America, per.
haps crossed and recrossed the Pacific, be-
fore chance threw it upon tho beach of San
Buenavcntura. Such q course vould be an
interesting confirmation Of tho theory that
while there is;a warm oceanic current set
ting northward from. tho equator through
Behring Strait, thore is cold counter cur
rent undermining it, which carries off the
waters of tho Pole to be heated under the
tropical sun, and again sent northwnrd.