These various expeditions were to examine the different channels up which it was supposed Sir John Franklin might have endeavoured to work his way. The result of their examinations proved beyond almost all doubt that he proceeded up Wellington Channel. Without following the ships step by step through their laborious progress across Baffin's Bay, down Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Straits, we will carry them at once to Beechey Island, which lies at the south-eastern extremity of Wellington Channel, just at its entrance into Barrow's Straits. Here, on the 27th of August, Mr Penny discovered undoubted traces of Sir John Franklin. Here, accordingly, the ships assembled to prosecute the examination. Dr Sutherland, who went out in the _Lady Franklin_, gives the following account of the interesting event:-- "Traces," he observes, "were found to a great extent of the missing ships: tin canisters in hundreds, pieces of cloth, rope, wood--in large fragments and in chips; iron in numerous fragments, where the anvil had stood, and the block which supported it; paper, both written and printed, with the dates 1844 and 1845; sledge marks in abundance; depressions in the gravel, resembling wells which they had been digging; and the graves of three men who had died on board the missing ships in January and April 1846. One of the shore party was despatched with this intelligence to Mr Penny, who immediately came on shore, accompanied by Sir John Ross, Commander Phillips of the _Felix_, Sir John's vessel, Commander De Haven and Lieutenant Griffiths of the American expedition, which had joined our ships in Barrow's Straits, and other officers. There were unequivocal proofs that the missing ships had spent their first winter in the immediate vicinity of Beechey Island. A finger-post was picked up, which we at once supposed had been made use of to direct parties to the ships during winter, if they should happen to have lost their way in a snowstorm. Captain Parry adopted the same precautions around his winter quarters at Melville Island; and it is not improbable some of the posts may be found, after a lapse of thirty years. Our ideas were, that the ships had wintered in a deep bay between Beechey Island and Cape Riley, which we called Erebus and Terror Bay. "Immediately adjacent to the supposed position of the ships, we found the site of a large storehouse and workshop, and smaller sites, which were supposed to have been observatories and other temporary erections. Meat-tins to the amount of 600 or 700, and a great number of coal-bags, one of which was marked `T-e-r-r-o-r,' were found. _But there were no papers found anywhere that had been left by the missing ships_." This station, in the opinion of Captain Penny, was occupied by Sir John Franklin's party until the 3rd of April 1846, if not longer, as a look-out up Wellington Channel, to watch the first opening of that icy barrier which seems so frequently to block it up.