regions, the several appendices, amounting to upwards of one hundred and forty pages, will afford all the information gained, and which, though meagre enough, considering the very limited and restricted means afforded by boats for the attainment of it, displays a considerable share of talent, attention, and industry by the several respective officers of both ships, who have given full proof how much more would have been accomplished had more frequent opportunities been afforded to them. The names of individual observers and collectors are always given by the commanding officer of expeditions of this nature-that of Ross forms an exception.

Commander John Ross was promoted to the rank of captain in December, 1818, on paying off the ships; and, singular enough, no other officer appears to have been promoted, not even Parry, who commanded the second ship, and who was not only suffered to remain a lieutenant, but was sent out, the following year, with two ships under his command, on a similar expedition, still as lieutenant, with Instructions addressed to "Lieutenant William Edward Parry, commanding."

Among the little irregularities of Commander Ross, it cannot escape notice that he addresses all his letters and orders, issued during the voyage, and unnecessarily printed in his book, as from John Ross, Captain of the Isabella. His promotion to that

rank on his return was easily acquired, being obtained by a few months' voyage of pleasure round the shores of Davis's Strait and Baffin's Bay, which had been performed centuries ago, and somewhat better, in little ships of thirty to fifty tons. It is a voyage which any two of the Yacht Club would easily accomplish in five months, and during that time might run far enough up Sir Thomas Smith's Sound, to ascertain the insularity, or otherwise, of Old Greenland. There are, among the members of that club, gentlemen sufficiently high spirited to undertake to solve that national question, and prove the accuracy of old Burleigh, and thus remove a blot from the geography of Northern Europe, for a part of that division of the globe Greenland is now ascertained to be. There is nothing to be apprehended from the severity of the temperature. During the three or four months that the ships of the present voyage were in the Arctic seas, the thermometer never fell below 26°; the general average was between 35° and 37°; no deaths took place, and scarcely a day's illness. Parry, by anticipation, doubts not that a ship, provided with sufficient food, warm clothing, and fuel, "might winter in the highest latitude we have been in, without suffering materially either from cold or disease;" he very soon proved it to be so.

In taking leave of Ross, it may be stated that the observations made on his strange conduct have

relation only to his unfitness for conducting the voyage of discovery, where science and accuracy were indispensable. In practical seamanship it is understood and admitted that he is sufficiently well skilled, as may be inferred from Sir George Hope's recommendation, as well as from the nature of his early and various services in ships of war in the Baltic, in merchant ships, and in ships trading to the East Indies.

CHAPTER III.

CAPTAIN DAVID BUCHAN.

1818.

A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, performed in his Majesty's ships Dorothea and Trent, under the Command of Captain DAVID BUCHAN, 1818. To which is added a Summary of all the early attempts to reach the Pacific by way of the Pole. By Captain F. W. BEECHEY, one of the Lieutenants of the Expedition.

THE two ships appropriated to this service were the Dorothea and the Trent, commanded, officered, and manned as under:

CAPTAIN DAVID BUCHAN was an active and enterprising officer, who for several years had been

accustomed to the navigation of the icy seas in the neighbourhood of Newfoundland, and received his promotion to the rank of commander in 1816, for his zeal and good conduct on that station. He also made a land journey over ice and snow nearly across the island, in order to procure an interview with the native islanders, he being the first European that ever ventured to go among them. On his return from the present expedition he was appointed in 1820 to the Grasshopper, in which ship he returned to Newfoundland, and served on that station till 1823, when he was promoted to the rank of captain. In coming from India he was lost in the Upton Castle, a ship that was never heard of after the 8th of December, 1838.

Next

LIEUTENANT FRANKLIN entered the navy in early life as midshipman of the Porpoise, one of the ships employed by Captain Flinders on the survey of the coasts of Australia, and was wrecked in her. in the Polyphemus as midshipman and master's mate from 1801 to 1808, and was in the fleet with Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen. He was next appointed acting-lieutenant in the Bedford; and was lieutenant of the Bellerophon in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and also in the Bedford in the attack on New Orleans in 1815, where he commanded in the boats, was wounded, gazetted, and highly spoken of. He was promoted to the rank of captain in 1822, on returning from his first