American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1869-10-23
Sir John Franklin, Again.
The STRANGE STORY FROM CILIFOR
MA.


MA.
The n. Y. Tribune has the follow
ing:
The report from San Francisco OF
the discovery on the California coast
OF record Of the Franklin expedi-
| ton, supposed to have been thrown
overheard among the flOzen waters
OF the Arctic circle, and after twenty
one Years to have been cast ashore
something like eight. thousand miles
from the place where it was launched,
is full OF Il melancholy interest,
though there is little probability
that~the document, even if authentic,
Will add much to what we already
know of the last days of Franklin's s
gallant band. In all likelihood, the
record is merel Y a duplicate of the
one which McClintock discovered on
hlng Williams Island in 1859.
Sir Leopold, it will be remembered,
found there the only authentic ac-
count of FranklUn's fate which, up to
the present time, has ever reached
us. In caiIn, erected twenty eight
years before by Sir John Ross, he
found inclosed in a tin case, record
Of Sir Johns last cruise up to the
25th of April, 1918. Franklin had
died on the 1Ith of June, 1917. The
ships Erebus and Terror had been
frozen i'll for nineteen months, and
the survivors of the crew, 105 in
number, under command of Capt.
Crozier, had abandoned them and
set out over land. for the Great Fish
River of British North America.
McClintock heard from the Esqui-
mauX how the white men had one by
one dropped down and died on the
way. He found the skeletons of two
or three, with their abandoned
sledges, boats, and guns he satisfied
himself that the remainder had per
ished miserably among the frozen
straits, and their bones had been lost
In the waters when the short sum-
mer thaw set in; and though there
has since been a rumOr that CroZier
and some of his men were alive
several years later among the Es-
quimauX, and may even yet be wan
dering i'll those inaccessible regions
where the foot of no other civilized
man has ever trod, there can be no
little doubt that McCiintock's con
ciuSlons were justified, and that no
later record of the most memorable
OF all Arctic voyages will ever reach
us.
The document said to have been
E------i-an -+i~~.H~lifnrsiia coast an
pears to have been w1irr.-..,~N lGD4
found on King Williams was, ON one
of the printed forms furnished by
the British Admiral to all discovery
ships, for the purpose of being en-
closed in bottles and thrown over
board i'll order to ascertain the dl-
rection OF ocean currents. So exact,
indeed, Judging from the telegraphic
report, is its resemblance to the Nc
Clintock relic, that we should have
little hesitation in prunouncing it a
forgery inspired by that document,
were it not probable that d forger
would have invented some variation,
aud given the record a later date.
Tie latitude is the same as that i'll
which Crozier deposited the writing
in the tin case; the longitude differs
by ten seconds, CroZier giving So
deg. / mir. l. Sc, .. and the California
report 9S deg. MIN. D sec.-Dut
this discrepancy may be owing to
a telesraphic blunder.
If this waif was really committed
to the waves by the crews of the
Erebus and Terror, when they set
out upon their awful land journey
in the Spring Of 1915, it must have
floated through that Northwest Pas
sage which so many lives and so
many years of herOlsm were eXpend-
ed in seeking, and which 1T is now
known that Franklin was the first to
discover, though the knowledge Of 1t
was not brought back to the civilized
world until Sir Leopold McClintock
returned from his search. 1t must
have tlOated through Behrin s
Straits, been tossed about the shores
of British America, perhaps crossed
and recrossed the Pacific, before
chance threw it upon the beach of
San Buenaventura. Such course
would be All interesting confirmation
of the theory fiat while there is a
warm oceanic current setting north
ward from the equator through Beh-
rings Strait, there is cold counter
current undermining it, which car
ries off the waters 9f the Pole to be
heated under the tropical sun and
again sent Northward.