vessel of ninety tons burthen, was fitted out at Aberdeen, and Captain Forsyth, of the Royal Navy, offered his gratuitous services as commander. At about the same time, Mr. Henry Grinnell, a wealthy merchant of New York, fitted out, at his own cost, two vessels,—the Advance and the Rescue,—and dispatched them to the Arctic Seas to aid in the search for Sir John. An exceedingly interesting narrative of the voyage has been published by Dr. Kane, the surgeon, naturalist and journalist of the expedition.
Time passed on, and all the vessels of the various expeditions returned to port without any tidings of the lost ones. In May, 1853, Mr. Grinnell again fitted out the Advance for the purpose of continuing the search, if necessary, for two years. She had a company of seventeen persons, under the command of Dr. Kane. She has been absent for over two years, and fears are entertained for the safety of her noble commander and his brave companions.
Subsequent to the departure of the Advance, the fate of Sir John Franklin and his crew was ascertained. They had perished of hunger and hardships, in attempting to reach the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company, by an overland journey from the Arctic Seas. Relics of the ill-starred voyagers were discovered by some agents of the company in the possession of the Esquimaux Indians. These relics consisted of philosophical instruments, watches, rings, spoons, etc., bearing the initials of Sir John and his companions. These had been picked up by the Indians at the place where the navigators had so miserably perished.
TRAVELS IN AFRICA.—PARK DENHAM, CLAPPERTON, LANDER, AND
OTHERS.
The vast continent of Africa, measuring 5000 miles in length, and
about 4700 in its greatest breadth, and the area of which is calculated at
12,000,000 square miles, or nearly one-fourth of the entire land area of
the globe, has presented greater obstacles to human enterprise than any
other equal portion of the earth's surface. The peculiar physical condition
of Africa has operated as one cause of her isolation from the rest of
the world. The other portions of our earth situated under the tropics
consist generally either of sea, or of narrow peninsular tracts of land, the
clusters of islands blown upon the sea-breeze. Africa, on the other hand,
presents scarcely one gulf or sea-break in its vast outline. A consequence
of this compact geographical shape of a continent, the greater part of
which is within the torrid zone, is its subjection, throughout its entire extent,
to the unmitigated influence of the sun's heat. All that is noxious in climate
we are accustomed to associate with Africa. Here stretching out
into a boundless desert, where for days the traveler toils amid burning
sands under a stifling sky—there covered with dense and swampy jungle,
breathing out pestilence, and teeming with all the repulsive forms of animal
life, the African continent seems to defy the encroachments of European
civilization. And although, probably, our ideas of these African horrors
will be modified by more accurate knowledge, enough seems ascertained
to prove that the lying open of interior Africa to the general flood of human
influence will be among the last achievements of the exploring spirit
of our race.
Notwithstanding the difficulties which lie in the way, Africa has at all
