The early days of October brought with them the exceedingly unpleasant discovery that 500 lbs. of preserved meat were putrid and only fit to be thrown away. A little later, an examination of his stores showed him that another 424 lbs. were unfit for food, bringing the loss up to nearly a thousand pounds, in addition to the sixteen casks of salt meat which had fallen into the sea earlier in the voyage. The matter was especially serious as he had assured the Admiralty that he was fully provisioned for three years. However, there was nothing for him to do but to make his crew forget the misfortune as quickly as possible, so he set about sending out expeditions along the shores of Prince of Wales’ Strait, as he had named the channel which he had just discovered, and through Banks’ Land. It was during one of these that he actually discovered the North-West Passage and so earned the ten thousand pounds offered by the Government. This event took place on October 26th, when M’Clure, having ascended a high hill found that, as he had hoped, Prince Albert Land trended away to the eastward, while Banks’ Land terminated in a low promontory about twelve miles from the point on which he stood. Away beyond the northern entrance to Prince of Wales’ Strait he gazed across the frozen waters of Melville Sound, in which Barrow Strait terminates. The dark days of winter passed away without misadventure, and, with the return of spring, M’Clure decided to send out sledge parties in search of Franklin. Few of those whose lot is cast in warmer climates can realise the dangers and discomforts of a long sledge journey in the Arctic regions. Sherard Osborn knew them well, and he gives so eloquent a description of them that we may quote it for the benefit of the uninitiated. “If they should feel cold,” he writes, “they must be patient, for until their return to the ship they will have no fire to warm them. Should their parched tongues cleave to their mouths, they must swallow snow to allay their thirst, for water there is none. Should their health fail, pity is all that their comrades can give them, for the sledge must move on its daily march. If hungry, they must console themselves by looking forward to being better fed when the travelling is over, for the rations are, necessarily, in sledge journeys, weighed off to an ounce. In short, from the time they leave the ship till their return to it, the service is ever one of suffering and privation, which call for the utmost endurance and most zealous energy.” Three parties were sent out, which surveyed the coasts of Banks’ Land and Prince Albert Land, but their labours were fated to be unrewarded, for not a trace of the missing expedition could they discover.