Abstract
THE past week has been an unusually interesting one so far as Arctic matters are concerned. First of all we have tidings of the return of the Franklin Search Expedition, sent out from the United States about two years ago, to follow up and unearth if possible some important relics of the Franklin expedition, said to exist among the Eskimo. It may be remembered that upwards of two years ago news reached this country that Mr. Barry, the mate of an American whaler, was told by some Nechelli Eskimo whom he met at Whale Point, Hudson's Bay, that some spoons with Franklin's crest upon them, possessed by the Eskimo, were received from a party of white men who passed a winter near their settlement, where they all died; and that these men left a number of books with writing in them, which were buried. The tale seemed very doubtful, and those best acquainted with the history of Franklin search expeditions considered that it was scarcely necessary to act on the gossip of the Eskimo. However, the people of the United States, who have all along manifested a generous enthusiasm in behalf of the Franklin expedition, thought otherwise, and by private enterprise an expedition was sent out in the summer of 1878, under Lieut. Schwatka, to follow up the traces indicated by the Eskimo. This expedition, after an absence of two years, has just returned, and although the success, so far as its immediate object is concerned, has not been great, it has evidently been able to make important additions to a knowledge of the condition of the inhospitable Arctic region traversed, a region rendered classical, if not sacred, by the early and terrible work of Franklin himself. The following telegram in the New York Herald of September 23, from New Bedford, Massachusetts, was the first announcement of the return of the expedition:—
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Arctic News . Nature 22, 506–507 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/022506a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/022506a0