In 1845-46 Franklin quartered at Beechey Island, on the southeast coast of North Devon, after having ascended Wellington Channel to latitude 77°, and returned west of Cornwallis Island, which was an exceedingly successful season’s work. In the autumn of 1846 he had turned toward the south, but had been stopped by and frozen into the masses of ice that come ceaselessly down M’Clintock Channel and press upon King William’s Land. Had he known King William’s Land to be really an island he need not have exposed himself to this. During all the summer of 1847 the ships remained firm in their icy bonds. Sir John Franklin died, and Captain Crozier took command. The spring of 1848 brought no hope, and in April the ships were abandoned. The crews started southward along the shore, dragging two boats (one of which was soon abandoned) and many sledges. The Eskimos said the men dropped down one at a time, from weakness and hunger; but it is believed that many of them were killed by the savages for the sake of what few things they had with them—precious articles to those natives. It appears that one of the vessels must have been crushed in the ice, and the other stranded on the shore of King William’s Land, where it lay for years, forming a mine of wealth for the neighboring Eskimos. Some years later Lieutenant Schwatka and W. H. Gilder, traveling with Eskimo parties in the region near the mouth of the Great Fish River, found the graves of the last remnant of the party, and recovered still other relics of this dreadful calamity. Let me copy for you here the postscript, written by Crozier and Fitzjames, to the short record of their work. It is startlingly brief and impressive: April 25, 1848. H. M. ships _Terror_ and _Erebus_ were deserted on 22nd April, five leagues N. N. W. of this [Point Victory], having been beset since 12th September, 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69° 37´ 42´´ N., long. 98° 41´ W. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June, 1847; and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men. We start on to-morrow, 26th April, 1848, for Back’s Fish River.