Evening Star Newspaper, October 26, 1930, Page 84

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, OCTOBER 26, 1930. smooth water. He and his pilot had blazed new treils hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle, They had mapped a thousand miles of coast line from the air and would map another thousand on the return journey. Their one remaining duty was to clear up, if possible, the Franklin mystery. To the northward stretched the great white desert, jagged and inhospitable, its rough-hewn pressure ridges scintillating in the afternoon . sun. Here the Franklin ships had been beset. Dividing his party, Maj. Burwash explored the shore line on foot, while others sought traces of the Franklin followe:s farther inland. Near Lady Jane Pranklin Point they found unmis- takable evidences of a Franklin camp—some stores and the stone walls of a rectangular tent. This may have been the camp discovered by Lieut. Hobson of the British Navy in the Win- ter of 1859-60. Then, however, the vicinity had been covered with a heavy fall of snow; now, the exceptionally mild Summer had melted the snow and ice that usually covers this barren country. The following morning they examined the coast line northward to Victory Point, where a cairn, not previously examined by any searching party, was found. But it apparently had been rifled by wandering groups of Eskimos. Oppo- site the cairn and close. to the shore Maj. Bur- wash came upon what evidently had been a fairly laige camp. A close search failed to reveal any graves or bodies nearby. Farther to the southward, at Terror Bay, the party visited the spot where Lieut. Schwatka of the United States Army found, 30 years after the Franklin tragedy, the remains of a hospital camp. Only one large grave, in which several bodies seem to have been buried, was located by Maj. Bur- wash’s party. This spot was carefully and reverently covered over. _ Their work on the ground completed, Burwash and his party returned to their plane, from which they photographed with their aerial route over which the expedition, following the death of their com- ;m.nder, attempted to return to civilization on loot. thmt,wcflnn‘lbwtm march is the fact, as subsequent events have shown, that these explorers starved in have been used for heating and lighting their tents, for cooking and for waterproofing their footgear. Instead, they depended upon the old-fashioned #allow candle - the call of the North and the fire of adven- ture in the blood brought the flower of the the fore whenever mmmpunned-qmt.urrbdmw Sir John From an Ol Engraving. personal friends of Sir John, won the sympa- thetic interest of the entire world. Approxi- mately 40 expeditions in all, both large and small, followed each other, year after year. Many of them ended in disaster, and it was not until 1854 that the Hudson Bay Co. search- ing party commanded by Dr. Rae ving talked with a group of Eskimos who they had seen a party of white men sev- ars before dragging their heavy boats over the ice to the southward. In language these men had indicated to 0s that their ships had been crushed Later on the natives discovered the d the graves of many of these men, lared, and in proof of their story they produced silver spoons and forks which be- longed to the missing explorers. Rae and his party were thereupon paid the reward of $50,- 000 offered by the British government for tidings of the expedition. It was the expedition of Capt. Leopold Mc- SEEFELSLEE il § g eighteenth to be dispatched in search of her illustrious husband), set out from England. They were beset by the ice late in the Sum- mer of 1860, and were marooned for 250 days in the ice packs of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, during which time they drifted some 1,400 miles. The following Summer they were freed Franklin. Courtesy of Robert Pridenbers. by the breaking up of the ice. After returning to Greenland for coal and provisions they headed for King William Land. Early in Feb- ruary, 1861, Capt. McClintock and Capt. Young set out with two parties to establish the route taken by the Pranklin survivors in their retreat southward, and to communicate with the Boothia Eskimos in the vicinity of the North Near Cape ilktofla.onthewesumlhnreof Boothia, McClintock was told by Eskimos that a few years before a ship had been crushed in that they had traveled across the Great Fish River. But there, the EsKimos said, they had died. McClintock and one of his officers, Lieut. Hobson, thereupon proceeded to explore King William Land, McClintock on the eastern side and Hobson on the western. McClintock found no fragments of wrecks, no human skeletons or camp sites, until within 10 miles of Point Herschel, where he found a single bleached skeleton. But from the west- ernmost point of King William Land to Cape Felix he met with painful evidence of the suf- fering and calamities that had overtaken the Franklin WeTs, A‘r one Eskimo village, near the North Magnetic Pole, McClintock found many relics of the lost expedition—silver spoons and forks, a sliver medal, buttons. knives and also Cannibalistic Fish Blamed for Shortage. ANY a fishermen has been stirred to wrathful expressions because of the presence of blue heron and other birds in his favorite fishing waters, believing that the birds are responsible for the numbers of trout fry that are planted in streams, naturally attribute their dis- appearance to enemies that are most ob- verse to the bird, were it not for the fact that sunfishes are not of great value, either for food or sport, and catfish are notorious spawn eaters. Wupom Many observers in Western States have commented on the destruction of harm- ful rodents by great blue herons, and in 1889 i i i ; 5 ; z § £ f ; i : a - : 2 H § i e two ships, one of which sank in deep water, the other being forced on shore by the ice. many skeletons were found. McClintock immediately set out to discover the stranded ships. But the sea had swallowed them. At Cape Victoria the party was split into two parts. Hobson taking one toward Cape Felix, King William Land, while McClintock, with the other, kept a more souther]y course. Crossing Wellington Strait to am inhabited snow village, McClintock py»#ssed from the Eskimos several pieces of sftver plate, bearing the crest or initials of MFranklin, Crozier and others. These natives also possessed uniforms and brass buttons, which were easily recognized as having belonged to the Franklin expedition. One of the old women told McClintock that many of the white men, in their retreat from the wrecked vessels, had dropped by the way as they went toward the Great Fish River; that some of them were buried and some were not. At another place they discovered a kayak pade dle constructed out of the blade of an ash oar. Crossing over to King William Land, upon the shore along whick the retreating crews must have marched, McGlintock found & hu- man skeleton. It was on a gravel ridge near the beach, which the wind kept partially bare ofsnow, and here and there a few fragments of clothing were seen through the snow. Hobson's party had made its way to Point Victory, on the northwest coast of King William Land, and there they discovered the only ex- isting record of the Franklin expedition. This was dated May 28, 1847, and told briefly that the two Pranklin ships had wintered in the ice in latitude 70 degrees 5 minutes north and longitude 98 degrees 23 minutes west. They had sailed up Wellington Channel to latitude 77 degrees morth and had returned along the western side of Cornwallis Island. Whether Franklin intended to pursue his northern course and was stopped by ice at latitude 77 degrees north, or purposely took a route which seemed to lead away from the coast of North America, probably never will be known. The Spring of 1847 found the two vessels within 90 miles of the known sea off the coast of North America. But in June, 1847, accord- ing to further entries on the records, Sir John Franklin died. In April, 1848, the two ships were abandoned 15 miles morthwest of Point Victory, and the survivors bravely set out in a desperate struggle for life. HEN McClintock reached the western- most point of King William Land, which he named for Capt. Crozier of the Terror, he came wpon a large boat. It was about the size of the ordinary whaleboat, but of very light draft. Evidently it had been built for ascending the Great Fish River. Its weight was about 750 pounds, and it was mounted upon a sledge of unusual weight and size, The sledge alone, McClintock estimated, weighed 650 pounds. The total weight of boat and sledge would “have been a load for = N boat’s side, probably as a protection against polar bears or wolves. There was a large amount of clothing and several pairs of boots. There was no food of any kind in the vicinity except 40 pounds of chocolate, but & great deal of silver tableware was found in the boat. Of the many men—probably 20 or 30—who were attached to this boat, it : i i E 3 | | | E | E i i RES g e fiF EEE 4] £ s s% g gf EE gii?