'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From December 1854 to March 1856. (New Issue.) Edited by the Secretary. Volume XII.' [‎38] (149/258)

38
DR. G. BUIST
Channel, which Captain Penny believed perfectly penetrable and likely
to have been that ascended by Franklin, was found closed. Capt. Austin
and his party returned in September 1851, when the greatest dissatisfaction
was expressed throughout the country with their proceedings. The only
fact of importance elicited on this occasion, was the exact position in which
Franklin had spent the first winter in the ice, leaving little doubt to his having
ascended the channel left unexplored though open in 1850. A committee of
enquiry now sat on this subject, the report of which was published. It re
commended that a further expedition be equipped in 1852, to examine in the
direction of Wellington Strait, to remain at sea if necessary till 1853.
Amongst the striking cases of blundering traceable amongst those investiga
tions is that of the misapprehension in reference to where information from the
missing explorers was to be looked for. Search was made under the cairn :
it turned out that it ought to have been at some distance from it, in the direc
tion indicated by the finger-post.
In May 1851 the Prince Albert, W\<s property of Lady Franklin, started a
second time from Aberdeen for the Polar Seas. She was on this occasion
commanded by Mr. Kennedy, a skilful, intrepid, and experienced navigator.
She reached lat. 51° 30’ N., long 57° W. in the beginning of July—the
commander full of hope of doing good service in the cause, in which his whole
soul seemed engaged. Lieutenant Bellot, of the French Navy, had volun
teered his services on board. In the middle of October Mr. Kennedy, with a
number of his people, were left behind by the sudden drifting of his ship to the
south, and imprisoned in the ice near Port Leopold, and it was by the intre
pidity and immediate exertions alone of Bellot that they were rescued. It was
by an accident parallel to that from which he saved his friend that he himself
lost his life the year after.
I ha\e omitted the voyage of the yacht Nancy Dawson wdiich was in our
harbour for some months in 1848 on a cruise round the world,—proposing to
attempt to penetrate Behring’s Straits. Her voyage, which did not promise
much in the way of discovery anywhere, was cut short by the demise in 1850
of Mr. Shedden, her owner and Commander, before reaching the cold latitudes.
All the expeditions which had been in quest of the missing adventurers
haying thus returned without success. Lieutenant Pirn afterwards the last to
quit and the first to meet McClure, proposed to pass over to Petersburgh
during the winter and push on to the extreme verge of Siberia on
the snow,—thence endeavouring to make his way over the ice or by canoes or
boats as far north as possible. Admiral Beaufort approved of, H. M.’s Lords
ot the Admiralty declined to countenance, the plan. Lady Franklin having
advanced £500 to assist the proposed explorer in his task, he was refused per*