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PAGE FROM "THE YELLOW BOOK OF LECAN."

(Reproduced from the Facsimile by permission of the Royal Irish Academy.)

J. SCOTT
KELTIE.
British

Explora-
tion,

1815-1885.

The
Arctic
Regions.

catalogues of manuscripts, etc. In Dublin Dr. Robert Atkinson has printed several texts with glossaries, some with and some without translation; and he has in preparation a glossary of the Brehon Laws, and a still more important work, a complete lexicon of the Gaelic language, both ancient and modern. Professor Kuno Meyer, of Liverpool, has published a number of Irish tales with translations, some in separate volumes and some in the Revue Celtique and other periodicals. Notwithstanding what has been done, however, the principal text of all still remains untranslated and unpublished. This is a long story called the " Táin bo Chuailnge," or the " Cattle Spoil of Quelna," the Irish epic, contained in "The Book of the Dun Cow," and "The Book of Leinster," which, from its great difficulty, has hitherto deterred Celtic scholars from dealing with it. It is, however, understood that Ernst Windisch has prepared a German version, and it is to be hoped that the text with the German translation will be soon given to the world.

From the foregoing sketch some idea may be formed of the amount of learning and labour expended in illustrating the ancient lore of Ireland. Moreover, the subject is attracting more and more attention, and the number of persons engaged in the investigation increases year by year; and it may be asserted that it excites almost as keen an interest among scholars as we see manifested by the public of learning in the study of Egyptian and Assyrian literature and antiquities.

THE continuous and almost world-wide war which was waged from 1793 to 1815 was not favourable to the work of exploration; but when the Napoleonic incubus was removed in the latter year, an impetus was given in this, as in other directions, to British activity, which grew with the century. But even in these oppressive years explorers were not entirely idle.

Soon after 1815 Polar exploration was renewed with increased zeal. Captain Scoresby, it may be mentioned, in 1806 reached, on the north of Spitzbergen, a latitude of 81° 12′ 42′′. In 1818 two Government expeditions were despatched-one under Captain Buchan, with Lieutenant John Franklin as second in command, to Spitzbergen, and the other under Captain John Ross, with Lieutenant Edward Parry as second, to Davis

Straits. The former was unfortunate, but the latter may be
said to have rediscovered Baffin's Bay. In the following year
Parry succeeded in pushing through Lancaster Sound and
Barrow Strait, passing the Parry Islands on his right to
Melville Island, about half-way to Behring Strait.
In a
second expedition (1821-3) Parry discovered Fury and Hecla
Strait, separating Melville Peninsula from Cockburn Land;

[graphic]

PASSAGE THROUGH THE ICE, JUNE, 1818.

(Sir J. Ross, "Voyage of Discovery in H.M.S. Isabella' and H.M.S. Alexander,'" 1819.)

and in a third attempt (1824) entered Barrow Strait, and explored the channel leading to the south, which he named Prince Regent's Inlet. At the same time that Parry tried to push his way from the east, Captain Beechey entered the Arctic Sea by Behring Strait (1826), and succeeded in reaching Point Barrow, 156° 31' W. With these two expeditions a third co-operated by land under Captain John Franklin. Before this, however, Franklin had succeeded in laying down a considerable stretch of the coast of Arctic America. 1819-22, accompanied by Dr. Richardson and two midshipmen, Back and Hood, Franklin made his way by the Saskatchewan and the Barren Grounds to the Coppermine river, which he

In

followed, descended, and explored the coast to the east for 500 miles, as far as Cape Turnagain. On his next expedition-that of 1826-Franklin, again accompanied by Dr. Richardson, descended the Mackenzie river, and laid down the coast of the continent through 37 degrees of longitude-as far east as the Coppermine river, and as far west as the 150th meridian, within 160 miles of Beechey's farthest. Meantime, on the east coast · of Greenland, Captain Scoresby succeeded (1822) in penetrating the ice-barrier and carrying out a survey from 75° N. to 69 ̊ N.; and in 1823 Captain Sabine conducted a series of pendulum observations on the same coast, in 75° 30′ N., surveying the coast from 72° to 76° N. One of the most interesting attempts to penetrate northwards was that made by Captain Parry in 1827, when he proceeded to Spitzbergen in the Hecla, and, setting out upon the ice in sledge-boats, reached 82 45' N., which for nearly half a century was the record northern latitude.

The next important Arctic expedition was equipped by Felix Booth, and placed under the command of Captain John Ross and his nephew James Ross. This expedition left England in 1829 in the Victory, and proceeded down Prince Regent's Inlet to its continuation, which was named the Gulf of Boothia, the projecting peninsula on its left receiving the same name, Boothia. Expeditions were made across the peninsula, on the west side of which, on June 1st, 1831, the Magnetic Pole was discovered. King William's Land, on the west of Boothia, was discovered and named, and to some extent explored. The Rosses-who passed four winters on the shores of Boothia and North Somerset, and had at last to abandon their vessels were rescued (1833) by a whaler in Barrow Strait. In 1833 Captain Back was sent out by land to search for the Rosses. In 1834 he descended the Great Fish river, but want of supplies prevented him from proceeding beyond its mouth. Nor was he more successful in 1836 in his attempt to complete our knowledge of the northern shores of America. This work was ultimately achieved by employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. Simpson and Dease in 1837 connected the work of Franklin with that of Beechey at Point Barrow, and in 1839 they traced the coast from Cape Turnagain eastward past the mouth of the Great Fish river to Castor and Pollux river.

In 1853-4, Dr. John Rae completed the work of Dease and
Simpson on the east, exploring the west coast of Boothia and
proving King William's Land to be an island.
however, in 1846-7, Rae had explored the
mittee Bay) on the south of Boothia Gulf.
thirty years' work, the outline of the
America was completed.

Before this, great gulf (ComThus, after about northern coast of

Franklin.

Partly owing to the strong representations of Sir John Bar- Sir John row, in 1845, the Government of the day resolved to make another attempt to discover a practicable north-west passage, and in June of that year despatched the Erebus and Terror, under the command of Sir John Franklin, who was well supported by Captain Crozier, Captain FitzJames, and other naval officers, and by a well-selected body of men. Proceeding up Baffin's Bay, Franklin passed through Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait, sailed up Wellington Channel to 77° N., circumnavigated Cornwallis Island, and returned to winter at Beechey Island, off the south-west coast of North Devon. In 1846 the ships proceeded down Peel Sound and Franklin Strait between North Somerset and Boothia on the one side and Prince of Wales Land on the other, towards the passage lying between King William's Land and Victoria Land, and were apparently caught in the ice near Cape Felix to the north-west of King William's Land, where they passed the winter of 1846-7. In June of the latter year Franklin died, and in the year following, no news of the party having reached England, a search expedition was sent out. Between that year and 1854 some fifteen expeditions were sent out from England and America with the hope of rescuing or, at least, of finding traces of the missing explorers. Their searches left no room for doubt as to the fate of Franklin and his men. The ships were abandoned on April 22nd, 1848. The officers and crew, consisting of 105 souls under Captain Crozier, landed on King William's Island in 98° 41′ W., and started for the mainland in the hope of being able to make their way up the Great Fish river to the Hudson's Bay Company's stations. From the testimony of the Eskimo and of the subsequently discovered relics of the expedition, it was evident that one by one the poor men fell by the way, dying of cold and starvation, most of them before reaching the mainland at all. In

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