Year: 1875

age OF the


There is no man whose opinions can be
esteemed of greater weight on the points in
volyed in the voyage Of the Pandora than
the famous navigator whose name is SO hon
orably associated with the most effective
service ever rendered in the endeavor to
follow the traces Of Sir John Franklin. Sir
Francis Leopold McClintock has made four
voyages to the Arctic regions. 1t was his
peculiar fortune to fall upon the first relics
ever discovered Of Franklin's expedition,
and to him, also, the world is indebted for the
sum Of the knowledge it possesses
Of the fate Of Franklin and his
men. He, moreover, has shown that
Franklin is the first and only navigator who
ever passed the critical point in the famous
Northwest Passage; for at the time McClin-
took was at the point where the Erebus and
Terror passed two years in the ice there was
open water all the way to Behring Strait.
If any man has a right to give an opinion on
further efforts in the same search it is GER
tainly this famous navigator, and his opinion
of the voyage Of the Pandora, frankly and
handsomely given, will be found in another
column.


Captain McClintock views very prac-
tically the two points the Northwest Pas
sage and the exploration Of King Williams
Land, for the discovery. Of Franklin's papers,
believed with good reason to be buried at a
point rather vaguely defined on that island.
Either point gained would be a sufficient





honor for any. expedition. TO sail from the
Atlantic into Arctic waters in the spring, and
to come out on the Pacific in the autumn,
would be to accomplish feat which the
world has dreamed Of for now nearly three
centuries and though many discoveries
and a larger knowledge have SO
changed the relations Of navigation to
geography that success in such a voyage
would not now have great practical value still
the man who first makes the voyage will be
sure Of brilliant place in the roll Of famous
mariners. Commerce can never utilize pas
sage beset with such difficulties but the
conception Of the existence Of such passage
has given US all our knowledge of the upper
half Of our continent and the Arctic regions,
and the final solution of such q problem will
at least make sailors glory. AS all the
heroism Of another age Of the world was given
to the thought Of the golden fleece, SO this
Northwest Passage has troubled heroic souls
in our own time until the search for relics of
Franklin pushed it for little out Of mems
thoughts.


Oddly enough, the two problems are to
~. - Il l,..A Al
From Behring Strait eastward, along the
northern coast Of the continent, there is open
water in the summer to the neighborhood Of
King Williams Land, and McClintock was
the first to find in the maze Of Arctic islands
that promontory which is the eastern ex-
the angle between the coast Of that promon-
tory running from northeast to southwest,
and the general line Of the continental shore
running east and west, lie both the Arctic
problems that in their human interest are
more attractive than the purely scientific
search for the terrestrial pole, for the
magnetic pole is also III this angle.
There is all that is not found Of
Franklin-there is the Northwest Passage,
passage that McC1intock could not make be-
cause Of q belt Of ice three miles wide,
though the Pandora found the same belt ffty
miles wide. Evidently, therefore, the pas
sage could not &c made, and to winter there
was Of course useless with regard to tho
Franklin relics, because the only search for
which any hope Is left is a search made in
the summer From Captain McClintock's 5
reasoning it would appear that there is a
prospect to get to King William Land by
Peel Strait only once in four Or five years I;
from the evidence it would seem, therefore,
much easier to get at il by the open water
from Behrin0 Strait