uring this time, two more expeditions had been sent out in
search of Sir John Franklin. The first of these was commanded by Sir James
Ross, the famous Antarctic explorer. The second expedition, while
discovering no trace of Franklin, claimed that it had discovered the long
sought for Northwest Passage. The science of astronomy lost one of its most
distinguished representatives in England by the death of Caroline Herschel,
the sister of the famous discoverer of Uranus. Besides her the necrology of
the year in England included the two authors, Isaac d'Israeli, the father
of Lord Beaconsfield, and Captain Frederick Marryat, the romancer of the
sea; Lord Alexander Ashburton, the framer of the Canadian boundary treaty
that commemorates his name, and George Stephenson, the inventor of the
first practicable locomotive. Stephenson began life as a pit-engine boy at
twopence a day near Newcastle-on-Tyne. Having risen to the grade of
engineman, he was employed in the collieries of Lord Ravensworth improving
the wagon way and railway planes under ground. In 1814 he completed a
locomotive steam-engine, which was successfully tried on the Killingworth
Railway. The locomotive "Rocket," constructed by Stephenson and his son
Robert, which won the premium of five hundred pounds in 1829, offered by
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, ushered in the greatest
mechanical revolution since the invention of the steam-engine by Watt.
After this Stephenson became a locomotive builder on a large scale and
acquired enormous wealth. Another invention standing to the credit of
Stephenson was one of the earliest safety lamps, but a committee which
investigated the subject accorded to Sir Humphry Davy the priority of this
invention. During this year Sir Austin Henry Layard published the results
of his original researches of Nineveh and its remains. Macaulay printed the
first two volumes of his "History of England," while Matthew Arnold brought
out his "Strayed Reveller" and other poems. Elizabeth Gaskell published
"Mary Barton."

Of the various expeditions undertaken in search of Sir John Franklin, the
most noteworthy perhaps was Dr. John Rae's overland journey through the
northwestern territory of America from the Mackenzie to the Copper Mine
River. This opened up a vast tract of country to adventurous Canadians.
Another lasting benefit was conferred upon Upper Canada by the
reorganization of the public school system of Ontario.

[Sidenote: