The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3, June, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3, June, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
come, and the heat of a constant day must accumulate, and summer wane,
before the ice is melted. Then the ice cracks, like cannons
over-charged, and moves with a loud grinding noise. But not yet is
escape to be made with safety. After a detention of ten months, Parry
got free; but, in escaping, narrowly missed the destruction of both
ships, by their being "nipped" between the mighty mass and the
unyielding shore. What animals are found on Melville Island, we may
judge from the results of sport during ten months' detention. The
Island exceeds five thousand miles square, and yielded to the gun,
three musk oxen, twenty-four deer, sixty-eight bears, fifty-three
geese, fifty-nine ducks, and one hundred and forty-four patarmigans,
weighing together three thousand seven hundred and sixty-six
pounds--not quite two ounces of meat per day to every man. Lichens,
stunted grass, saxifrage, and a feeble willow, are the plants of
Melville Island, but in sheltered nooks there are found sorrel, poppy,
and a yellow butter-cup. Halos and double suns are very common
consequences of refraction in this quarter of the world. Franklin
returned from his first and most famous voyage with his men all safe
and sound, except the loss of a few fingers, frost-bitten. We sail
back only as far as Regent's Inlet, being bound for Behring Strait.
The reputation of Sir John Ross being clouded by the discontent
expressed against his first expedition, Mr. Felix Booth, a rich
distiller, provided seventeen thousand pounds to enable his friend to
redeem his credit. Sir John accordingly, in 1829, went out in the
"Victory," provided with steam-machinery that did not answer well. He
was accompanied by Sir James Ross, his nephew. He it was who, on this
occasion, first surveyed Regent's Inlet, down which we are now sailing
with our Phantom Ship. The coast on our right hand, westward, which
Parry saw, is called North Somerset, but farther south, where the
inlet widens, the land is named Boothia Felix. Five years before this,
Parry, in his third voyage, had attempted to pass down Regent's Inlet,
where among ice and storm, one of his ships, the "Hecla," had been
driven violently ashore, and of necessity, abandoned. The stores had
been removed, and Sir John was able now to replenish his own vessel
from them. Rounding a point at the bottom of Prince Regent's Inlet, we
find Felix Harbor, where Sir John Ross wintered. His nephew made from
this point scientific explorations; discovered a strait, called after
him the Strait of James Ross, and on the northern shore of this
strait, on the main land of Boothia, planted the British flag on the
Northern Magnetic Pole. The ice broke up, so did the "Victory;" after
a hairbreadth escape, the party found a searching vessel, and arrived
home after an absence of four years and five months, Sir John Ross
having lost his ship, and won his reputation. The friend in need was
made a baronet for his munificence; Sir John was reimbursed for all
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