From the east no less than ten vessels had attempted the Franklin sea search in 1851, comprising two Admiralty expeditions, one private English one, an American combined government and private party, together with a ship put in commission by the wifely devotion of Lady Franklin. These all attempted the search of Lancaster Sound, where Franklin had last been seen, and they only succeeded in finding three graves of men who had died at an early stage, and had been buried on Beechey Island. Another set of four vessels were despatched under Sir Edward Belcher in 1852, who were fortunate enough to reach M'Clure in the _Investigator_ in the following year, and enabled him to complete the north-west passage, for which he gained the reward of £10,000 offered by Parliament in 1763. But Belcher was obliged to abandon most of his vessels, one of which, the _Resolute_, drifted over a thousand miles, and having been recovered by an American whaler, was refitted by the United States and presented to the queen and people of Great Britain. Notwithstanding all these efforts, the Franklin remains have not yet been discovered, though Dr. Rae, as we have seen, had practically ascertained their terrible fate. Lady Franklin, however, was not satisfied with this vague information. She was determined to fit out still another expedition, though already over £35,000 had been spent by private means, mostly from her own personal fortune; and in 1857 the steam yacht _Fox_ was despatched under M'Clintock, who had already shown himself the most capable master of sledge work. He erected a monument to the Franklin expedition on Beechey Island in 1858, and then following Peel Sound, he made inquiries of the natives throughout the winter of 1858-59. This led him to search King William Land, where, on the 25th May, he came across a bleached human skeleton lying on its face, showing that the man had died as he walked. Meanwhile, Hobson, one of his companions, discovered a record of the Franklin expedition, stating briefly its history between 1845 and 1848; and with this definite information of the fate of the Franklin expedition M'Clintock returned to England in 1859, having succeeded in solving the problem of Franklin's fate, while exploring over 800 miles of coast-line in the neighbourhood of King William Land. The result of the various Franklin expeditions had thus been to map out the intricate network of islands dotted over the north of North America. None of these, however, reached much farther north than 75°.