This, the last page in the history of the British arctic exploration, is a melancholy one; for though the task undertaken was gallantly and successfully accomplished, the publication is posthumous, and the adventurous author lived not to wear the laurels so honorably won. His own recital is one which must be read by his countrymen with satisfaction, only impaired by regret for his melancholy and mysterious fate. Its style, remarkable even beyond that of his recent predecessors for concision, is, like theirs, of that simple and unpretending character which best becomes the narrative of real enterprise and endurance. The achievements it records place the author’s name on the long list of British worthies which begins with Frobisher. The utility of such achievements may indeed be questioned. To what purpose are the realms of all but eternal winter invaded by such repeated incursions? Why expose the nose of man to the blast of the barrens, with the thermometer at 60° below zero: and when government, weary of its efforts, abandons the task, why should officials of the Hudson’s Bay Company exchange their proper functions as purveyors of peltry for those of navigators and geographers? The answer to all such utilitarian interrogatories rises spontaneously to the lips of every one who takes an interest either in the advancement of science or the honor of England. We are indeed no longer lured, like our ancestors, by the prospect of commercial advantages from a north-western communication with Japan or Cathay; but, without condescending to argue the question, we regret no past, we shall grudge no future expenditure, whether of money or heroism, which may have contributed, or hereafter may contribute, to the final discharge of one of Great Britain’s proper functions, the survey of the coastline of North America. This primary object attained, it will yet remain to be shown that the North Pole itself is inaccessible, and that the difficulties of a north-west passage are insurmountable by British navigators. On both these questions we venture to refer our readers to our article, of the year 1840, on Wrangell’s expedition, vol. lxvi. p. 444.
Meanwhile the Franklins, the Backs, and the Simpsons have left but little to be achieved towards the accomplishment of the coast survey. The extent of the hiatus remaining on our maps will be best understood by a reference to Mr. Simpson’s instructions and the objects embraced in his enterprise. We call them Mr. Simpson’s instructions in virtue of his authorship, and without fear of exciting any jealousy on the part of the able and veteran chief of the expedition, Mr. Dease, who appears to have conceded to his youthful subordinate, when occasion permitted, precedence in labor and fatigue, as well as in the scientific operations of the expedition, which were entirely in Mr. Simpson’s hands. Mr. Dease’s merits and services are well known to the readers of Franklin and Back. The first object indicated in the instructions issued by the Hudson’s Bay Company Directors, was the completion of that part of the coast survey to the westward of the Mackenzie River which had been left unfinished by Franklin and Beechey in 1826. Such of our readers as have not recently pored over the additions to our arctic maps, contributed by successive expeditions, have to be reminded that in that year a combined operation was conducted, from the Pacific by Captain Beechey, from the mouth of the Mackenzie River by Captain Franklin, in the hope that the two parties might meet somewhere on the coast. They failed in effecting their junction, but how nearly they succeeded, the following dates and positions will show.
On the 18th of August, the barge of Captain Beechey’s vessel, the Blossom, quitted that ship off Icy Cape, and on the 22d, reached longitude 156° 21’ W., some 120 miles to the eastward of their point of departure. Hence, after being embedded for some days in ice, and after her commander, Mr. Elson, had made up his mind to abandon her and return on foot, she was fortunately extricated, and made sail again to rejoin the Blossom on the 25th. On the 16th of August, Captain Franklin reached longitude 138° 52’ W.; and on the 17th, the weather cleared sufficiently to allow him, as he believed, to ascertain the position of a point of land to the westward, which he named after Captain Beechey; at which point he writes, longitude 149° 27’, “our discoveries terminated.” “Could I have known,” he continues, “or by any possibility imagined, that a party from the Blossom had been at the distance of only 160 miles from me, no difficulties, no dangers, no discouraging circumstances, should have prevailed upon me to return.” It is a satisfaction to know that, in Sir John Franklin’s own opinion, founded on subsequent information, the attempt would have been fruitless, and probably fatal to all concerned. This interval, therefore, of somewhat less than 7° of longitude (averaging 23 miles to a degree,) was all that, since 1826, remained to complete the survey from Mackenzie River westward to the Pacific; and that completion was indicated in the instructions as the first object of the expedition. It will be seen that it was effectually and speedily accomplished.
To the eastward a wider field was open to conjecture and discovery. In 1826, while Franklin was working to the west, his admirable coadjutor Richardson had surveyed the interval between the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers. In 1834 Captain Back had descended the Tlewocho, or
