'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎36] (147/258)

36
DR. G. BUIST
ice, as it had been determined that the previous winter should be spent. The
Herald returned from the first portion of her research in December 1849,
without any tidings of the adventurers. The Plover was so dull a sailer
that she had got no further north than Calloo in July—it was November befoie
she neared the Straits, and by this time the icy sea was closed.
In August 1849 the Plover reached latitude 72° 51’ and longitude 163° 48—
the greatest northing ever attained from Behring’s Straits, considerably above
what was laid down by Captain Beechy in 1827 as the line of compact ice ;
from this, whale boats were dispatched for the mouth of the McKenzie river.
The two ships returned in November to Kotzebue Sound, where the Plover
prepared to winter. The ships Enterprize and Investigator which had just
returned from Hudson’s Bay under Sir J. Ross, where they had sustained no
injury from the ice, were in January 1850 put in commission for a new expe
dition by Behring’s Straits, under Commanders Collinson and McClure;
they were provided with three years’ supplies, and left on the 15th for Cape
Horn,—thence to the Sandwich Islands,—where they w r ere to aw r ait further
instructions from home before joining the Plover. The expedition was pro
vided with a large supply of balloons intended to convey information—these
were to be sent up with some hundreds of slips of bright coloured paper at
tached to them by slow matches, to be disconnected at various elevations,—
each paper containing the intelligence meant to be conveyed. It was suppos
ed that these would become so ditfused that there was every likelihood of
some of them being secured.
Lady Franklin now encreased her offer from £2000 to £3000 : she herself
visited all ourports whence whaleships are dispatched, eagerly enquiring for in
formation and endeavouring to stimulate the ardour of the polar navigators in
the cause of enquiry. She memorialised the Emperor of Russia and the
President of the United States on the subject; and the former having con
sulted the imperial academy of sciences, directed an expedition to be fitted
out to examine the shores of Siberia and Nova Zemla : Congress at once
voted a sum sufficient for the prosecution of the proposed enquiry. Two
brigs, the Advance and Research were equipped under the auspices of Mr.
Grennell, who himself subscribed $6000 to assistthey were dispatched early
in May 1850 for Behring’s Straits, in charge of Lieutenant DeHaven : they
were provisioned for three years.
On the 23rd March 1849 the Admiralty made an offer of £20,000 for any
one who could procure relief for the missing adventurers—a sum more worthy
of the nation than the pitiful thousand pounds previously proposed : this was
in addition to the charges of the North Star, estimated at £12,680. The
offer unfortunately was too late for the season—nearly all the whalers had