The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-10-23
The Last Tidings of Sir John Franklin.

The return of the party under Lieu
tenant Schwatka from their search for
Sir John Franklin's long lost Arctic
records probably closes the expedition
airy efforts to recover these historic
relics. From the days of Sir Hugh Will
loughby, whose tragic fate in 1904
thrilled the civilized world with the
horror of Polar night, no explorer has
excited the interest and sympathy felt
to this day in Franklin. Although the
greatest of modern navigators persisted
before he had traced the Northwest
Passage to its Asiatic terminus at Ben
ring Strait, the honor of its discovery by
consent of geographers belongs to the
Commander of the Erebus and Terror.
In 1851 Mcclure in the Investigator,
actually fought his way from Behring
Strait over large part of the passage,
and when compelled to leave his ship
completed the journey to the Atlantic
shores on foot. But geographers, de-
spite the large array of valuable infor-
nation and physical data brought by
Mcclure, McClintock and many others
from the regions traversed by Franklin,
have always been inconsolable for the
loss of his records and the written re-
mains of his expedition. After thou
sands of miles of sledging and nearly
two years spent in interrogating the ma
tive around the very narrow circle OF
Franklin's final labors, Lieutenant
Schwatka has confirmed the chief con-
illusions reached by the McClintock
search expedition of 1858, and also adj
ded many relics to the precious collec-
ton secured.
But the chief point established by
Lieutenant Schwatka is that the Erebus
and Terror, after they were abandoned
by Franklin's men, April %, 1S4S,
drifted much further south-one of them
having certainly gone down near Grant
Point, on Adelaide Peninsula, south of
King Williams Land. The failure of
so many explorers to find the records
and observations of the Erebus and
Terror and the improbability that when
forced to leave their ships the explorers
were able to carry more than what was
needed for their sustenance, suggest
that the records were left on board the
ships. This is now corroborated by the
discovery of Lieutenant Schwatka, that
after the ships were deserted portion
of the survivors returned to one of the
ships and were in her when she went
down near Grant Point. They left the
ships after Franklin's death in charge
of Captain Crozier, and probably re-
turned for the trifing remnant of pro-
visions left on board. Their vessels had
only been provisioned, McClintock says,
till 1S4S, and their long and unforeseen
Imprisonment of eighteen months in
the ice west of King Williams Land
must have reduced them to great ex-
tremities. The party returning to the
ship had they any precious documents
would doubtless have deposited them in
stone cairn on the west side of that
island. But as yet no token pointing
to the existence of such a deposit has
come to light. We are consequently
shut up to the conclusion that the only
remains of the Franklin expedition that
can give the world the story of his suf-
ferings and triumphs lies buried beneath
the waves of the Arctic Ocean never
more to see the light.-!St Louis Repub-
licd1.