ing the ice through
Behring's Straits, the _Enterprise_, from having been somewhat longer on
her voyage, was not so fortunate, and was compelled to winter in Port
Clarence. Hence the _Enterprise_ again sailed on the 10th of July 1851,
to push her way eastward along the American coast, visiting the islands
which form the northern shore of the channel. Here he found several
depots and marks left by Captain McClure in the spring or in the
previous autumn. The _Enterprise_ finally was frozen in, in a sheltered
harbour in Prince Albert's Land, near the entrance of Prince of Wales'
Straits.

Several long and hazardous expeditions were performed on foot with
sledges during the spring of 1852, both north and east, being out
between forty and fifty days. Again putting to sea, the _Enterprise_
passed through Dolphin and Union Straits and Dean's Straits eastward.
By the 26th of September the _Enterprise_ reached Cambridge Bay, when
she was again frozen in, to pass her third winter in the ice--one of the
most severe ever experienced in those regions. During the next spring,
that of 1853, Captain Collinson, with his Lieutenants Jago, Parkes, and
other officers, were employed in pushing on their laborious explorations
in the direction where they hoped some traces of their long-lost
countrymen might be found. In latitude 70 degrees 3 minutes north and
longitude 101 degrees west they fell in with a cairn erected by Dr Rae,
from which they obtained the first intimation that any parties had
preceded them in the search, and their observations tended to
corroborate his, namely, that the ice, _except in extraordinary seasons,
does not leave the east coast of Victoria Land_.

Little did Captain Collinson know that from the shore on which he stood,
as he looked eastward, he gazed on the very ice-field in which the
_Erebus_ and _Terror_ had been beset, and that amid it, not many miles
distant, the brave, the noble Franklin had breathed his last--that it
was during an extraordinary season the two exploring ships had entered
the icy snare, from which they were never to be released.

But we are anticipating the events of our deeply interesting and
melancholy history.

Captain Collinson and his companions reached their ship on the 31st of
May, after an absence of forty-nine days. It will be thus seen, that in
justice the honour should be awarded to Captain Collinson and his
followers, equally with Captain McClure and his, of having disc