The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1880-10-07
SCHWATKA'S SEARCH.
HISTORY OF THE POLAR EXPEDITION THAT
HAS JUST RETURNED.

The somewhat meager results of Lieut..
Schwatka's expedition in search of relics
of Sir John Franklin and his men make
it seem probable that no further attempts
will be made to penetrate the mystery
| which hangs about the fate of that i'll
starred panty of Arctic explorers. Enough
has been learned concerning the times
and places whore these brave men died
to show that little remains to be discov-
cred. 1t is now thirty two years since the
first English expedition WAS fitted out to
go in search of the Erebus and Terror
Sir John had sailed in May, 1915, with
134 officers and men. His ships were
last seen in Baffins Bay on July &c. He
was then pushing westward, intent on ex-
ploring the north coast of the American
| mainland from Backs River to Behrjng
Strait When three years had rolled by
| without further tidings from the explor
ers, England took alarm and sent an ex
pedition to hunt them up. The whole
civilized world soon became deeply in
terested in their fate, and its profoundest
sympathy was stirred by the distress of
Lady Franklin and her heroic efforts in
aid of the search. More than twenty ex-
peditions have probably been sent out
with that specific purpose. DIR. Rae's
party, in 1854, discovered skeletons of
some of the men, and in 1859 brief
written record of the expedition up to
April %, 1S48, was discovered in a cairn
on King Williams Land, where it had
been placed by one of Sir Johns officers.
This paper stated that the Erebus and
Terror had been abandoned on April %,
| having been icebound since September,
1916. ''Sir John Franklin died on the
11th of June, 1947'--thus ran the brief
| announcement which nearly deprived
Lady Franklin of her reason. The los
survivors of the party, so the record said,
were to start on the 26th of April for
Backs River. We know that these men
| attempted to drag with them two boats
and some siedges laden with food and
supplies. They all perished on that
| wearisom journey. This much we have
learned from the stories of the Esqui-
maux and from the discovery of skele-
tons along the route they pursued.
The expedition whose members have
just returned to New Bedford aboard a
| whaling bark, which picked them up on
Depot Island, was organized in the full
hope of further and more important dis
| coveries. In 1872 Captain Thomas Barry
reported that he had been visited on
board his bark Leisure, in Repulse Bay,
by two Esquimaux, who gave him five
silver spoons with the crest of Sir John
Franklin. The natives said the spoons
had been brought from the interior. On
Captain Barry's return to New York the
spoons were sent to Lady Franklin. Four
years later, Captain Barry, being again
in Repulse Bay, was visited by another
party of Esquimaux, who gave him one
| of Sir Johns spoons, and told him that
they had taken it from a cairn, about 700
| miles distant, in which there were also
other relics and books. Captain Barry's
story of this second visit excited great
deal of interest in New York, particular
| ly among the members of the Geograph-
ical Society. A subscription was imme-
diately started and en- expedition organ
lied to visit the Natchilli Esquimaux and
investigate the truth of the story about
the cairn. As a result of the efforts of
Mr.. Morrison, of the shipping firm of
Morrison Il Brown, and Chief Justice
DAILY and others, the schooner Eothen
left this port on June 10, 1878. in COM
mand of Captain Barry, and carrying an
| exploring party in charge of Lieutenant
Schwatka, of the Third Cavalry, and IN
Guiding among its members Joseph Eber-
ling, the "Esquimaux Joe" of the Hayes,
Hall, and Pandora expeditions. The
| Eothen landed Lieutenant Schwatka and
his party at the head of Repulse Bay; and
from that point they made sledge jour
ney to King Williams Land, accompan-
led by dozen Esquimaux. They travel
ed over 5000 miles in going and coming,
and endured without serious suffering or
injury the intense cold of an Arctic win
ter. On the Sd of last January they en-
countered a temperature of II degrees
below zero, and for nearly a month their
thermometers registered an average of
60 degrees below zero. The Americans
showed themselves fnlly equal to their
Esquimaux companions in enduring this
extremely low temperature. They lived
upon the same food and in the same
manner as the natives.
Their search for relics of Sir John
Franklin's party had one negative result
of great Importance, as it ex.inguishes
the hope of any further discovery of
written records. They were told that
the NatchilI Esquimaux had found tin
box, one foot square and two feet long,
containing books, at point near Back s
River, the place where the last of the
Franklin party probably perished. The
box was found aud opened by the natives
not long after the death of the white men,
that is to say, thirty years ago. The
most careful search failed to bring to
light any of its contents, which were
most likely the written records of the
Franklin expedition, aud there is hardly
a doubt that they were long since ire
! parably lost or destroyed. They ascer-
tanned that the cairn mentioned in Capt.
Barry's story has no existence. 1t is
evident, then, that the history of the
expedition up to the time of Sir Johns
death, the particulars of his illness, the
story Of the wanderinps of the crews