In the meanwhile Austin was pushing on his work with tremendous vigour, and to him and to his able junior officer, M’Clintock, must belong the credit of bringing the art of sledging to a higher pitch of perfection than had ever been attained before. The autumn was spent in establishing depots of provisions along the routes which were to be followed in the spring, and in examining the southern shores of Cornwallis Land in the hope that some traces of Franklin might be found there. It was in the middle of April that two great sledge parties started out under Ommaney and M’Clintock to pursue the search to the south and east. Ommaney discovered and explored the northern shores of Prince of Wales’ Land, which lay in the route where Franklin had been instructed to seek for the North-West Passage. He found, however, that the sea was so shallow and the ice so old that by no possibility could the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ have approached the shores. During his sixty days’ absence from the ship he covered 480 miles and explored 205 miles of new coast. M’Clintock’s objective was Melville Island, which had not been visited since Parry wintered there, but, though he covered 770 miles during his eighty-one days’ absence, he found no trace of the explorers. Other parties sent out from the ships made important geographical discoveries, but, so far as the main object was concerned, their efforts were as fruitless as were those of the two big sledge expeditions. As soon as the ice broke up, Penny approached Austin with a suggestion that one of his steam tenders should explore the northern half of Wellington Channel. Austin, however, did not think that any useful purpose would be served thereby, and, as he was not prepared to spend another winter in the ice the whole squadron returned home. In the same summer the _Prince Albert_, which, it will be remembered, had sailed for home with tidings of the discovery of Franklin’s first winter quarters, set out once more under the command of Captain Kennedy, with a French volunteer, Lieutenant J. R. Bellot, as second in command. It was while he was examining the northern shores of Prince Regent’s Inlet that Kennedy’s career was very nearly brought to an untimely close, for, with four companions, he became separated from the ships, and for a long time there seemed no prospect of his being able to rejoin her. Fortunately, he found that the stores which Ross had left at Somerset House in 1832 were in good condition, and there he and his companions remained for six weeks, at the end of which time Bellot succeeded in rescuing them. In the spring the two officers made a brilliant sledge journey, in the course of which they discovered that Brentford Bay was really a strait—which Kennedy promptly named after his companion—and travelled round the whole coast of North Somerset. In spite of their efforts, however, they did not light upon a single trace of Franklin and his men. CHAPTER XV THE VOYAGES OF COLLINSON AND M’CLURE