Three days subsequently, Sir John Richardson, finding he could dispense with the services of eighteen persons, sent them on to the fishery location of Big Island on Great Slave Lake. Ten of the detached party were sappers, leaving only three of the corps with the chief, viz: lance-corporals James Mitchell and Robert Mackie, and private David Brodie. The two latter fitted up the meagre establishment with tables and chairs, and such other social commodities as were considered to be requisite to give the fort a character of domestication, and to afford facilities of comfort to the adventurers. The fort was about three miles from the mouth of the Dease River and near to Fishery Island. As far as the European contingent was concerned, the expedition was brought to a close; and the search, prosecuted under very trying circumstances, amid perils, hardships, and want, failed to discover any trace of the whereabouts of Sir John Franklin and his crews. The shores of Wollaston and Victoria could not be examined as had originally been intended, as Sir John Richardson had no means of carrying out the project, his craft having, unavoidably, been abandoned in September, 1848. With the only boat, however, taken up to Fort Confidence, Mr. Rae, with a party of natives, essayed unsuccessfully to pass to Wollaston land. Had this been achieved, a defined clue, in all probability, would have been presented to the track of the missing adventurers. It was in the vicinity of this region, a few years after, that the mournful relics of the fated explorers, found by some Esquimaux, passed into the possession of Mr. Rae, and confirmed in this country the certainty of the appalling destiny of the expedition. ----- Footnote 1: