But more than twenty years were to elapse before the discoveries thus made were carried to their completion. Franklin himself, claimed by other duties, was unable to continue his work in the Arctic, and his appointment to the governorship of Tasmania called him for a time to another sphere. Yet, little by little, the exploration of the Arctic regions was carried {111} on, each explorer adding something to what was already known, and each hoping that the honour of the discovery of the great passage would fall to his lot. Franklin's comrade Back, now a captain and presently to be admiral, made his way in 1834 from Canada to the polar sea down the river that bears his name. Three years later Simpson, in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, succeeded in traversing the coast from the Mackenzie to Point Barrow, completing the missing link in the western end of the chain. John and James Ross brought the exploration of the northern archipelago to a point that made it certain that somewhere or other a way through must exist to connect Baffin Bay with the coastal waters. At last the time came, in 1844, when the British Admiralty determined to make a supreme effort to unite the explorations of twenty-five years by a final act of discovery. The result was the last expedition of Sir John Franklin, glorious in its disaster, and leaving behind it a tale that will never be forgotten while the annals of the British nation remain. {112} CHAPTER V THE TRAGEDY OF FRANKLIN'S FATE