A great deal of valuable and highly interesting work, however, was done, and in addition to at length discovering enough relics of the party to show that all the members had perished while carrying out their duty, an amount of knowledge was acquired which made the North-West Passage familiar, located the Magnetic Pole, and opened the way for more recent and equally brilliant journeys towards the Pole itself. The general public, as well as the Government, were responsible for search expeditions; but to stimulate the enterprise, the British Government offered a sum of £20,000 to any party of any country that should render efficient service to the crews of the missing _Erebus_ and _Terror_. Half that reward was paid to Dr. Rae, who discovered the relics of the party, now at the Greenwich Museum, consisting of Sir John Franklin's star, some spoons and forks, the remains of a watch, and some other metallic odds and ends. The story of this discovery was briefly told by Dr. Rae in a letter to the Admiralty. He was, in 1854, surveying the coast of the mainland immediately south of King William's Land, when he encountered a small party of Eskimo hunters. He asked them whether they had ever met other white men, and they told him that four summers before (1850) a number of white men had been encountered by some Eskimo who were catching seals off the south coast of King William's Land. The white men came from over the ice, and were dragging a boat behind them. By signs they made the hunters understand that they were hungry, and a seal was exchanged for the articles Dr. Rae was shown. Then the white men went on walking over the ice, dragging the boat behind them, one walking in front alone, and all the rest pulling the ropes attached to the boat. A few weeks later they were seen again, this time on the mainland, but all were dead. The place where they were found was about one day's journey from the Great Fish River, and all had evidently died of cold and starvation. They had erected tents and had turned the boat over for a shelter, and some of the men lay under the boat, while others were in and around the tents. One man was some distance away with a telescope slung over his shoulders, and underneath his body was a double-barrelled gun. This man, they said, was the chief of the party. About the encampment there were plenty of guns and ammunition, but no food. More than likely the unfortunate castaways were too weak from want to be able to hunt, for Dr. Rae, in his reports, stated: "I may add that with our guns and nets we obtained an ample supply of provisions last autumn, and my small party passed the winter in snow houses in comparative comfort, the skins of the deer shot affording abundant warm clothing and bedding."