This decided the point, and Franklin was appointed to the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, recently returned from the Antarctic expedition of Sir James Ross. The ships were provisioned for three years, and with a crew of one hundred and twenty-nine men and several officers, Sir John Franklin left England for the last time on 19th May 1845. He was never seen again! All were in the highest spirits, determined to solve the mystery of the North-West Passage once and for all! So certain were they of success that one of the officers wrote to a friend: "Write to Panama and the Sandwich Islands every six months." On 4th July the ships anchored near the island of Disco on the west coast of Greenland. After which all is silence. The rest of the story, "one of the saddest ever told in connection with Arctic exploration," is dovetailed together from the various scraps of information that have been collected by those who sailed in search of the lost expedition year by year. In 1848, Sir James Ross had sailed off in search of his missing friend, and had reached a spot within three hundred miles of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ four months after they had been abandoned, but he returned with no news of Franklin. Then Sir John Richardson started off, but found no trace! Others followed. The Government offered 20,000 pounds, to which Lady Franklin added 3000 pounds, to any one who should bring news of Franklin. By the autumn of 1850 there were fifteen ships engaged in the search. A few traces were found. It was discovered that Sir John Franklin had spent his first winter (1845-46) at Beechey Island. Captain McClure sailed along the north coast of America and made his way from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean--thus showing the existence of a north-west passage, for which he and his men were highly rewarded, for at this time no one knew that Franklin had already found a passage though he had not lived to tell the story of triumph and success. But it was not till after years of silence that the story of the missing expedition was cleared up. Lady Franklin purchased and fitted out a little steam yacht, the _Fox_, of one hundred and seventy-seven tons. The command was given to Captain McClintock, known to be an able and enthusiastic Arctic navigator. He was to rescue any "possible survivor of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, and to try and recover any records of the lost expedition." [Illustration: ESKIMOS AT CAPE YORK WATCHING THE APPROACH OF THE _FOX_. From McClintock's _Voyage in Search of Franklin_.]