On the morning of August 25, 1833, their feelings were raised to an intense pitch of excitement by the sight of a sail, which failed to detect in turn the forlorn castaways. Though some fell into deep despair as the ship stood away, the more rational men felt assured of their final safety, since whalers were actually in the strait. A few hours later they were fortunate enough to fall in with and to be picked up by the whaler _Isabella_, a remarkable incident from the fact that she was the arctic ship which Sir John Ross had commanded in his expedition of 1818 to Baffin Bay. When Ross answered the hail from the astonished captain of the _Isabella_, it was a unique and startling greeting that he received. For when answering that he was Captain John Ross, the captain of the whaler blurted out, "Why, Captain Ross has been dead two years," which was indeed the general belief. After investigating the affairs of the expedition, a committee of Parliament reported "that a great public service had been performed [with] deeds of daring enterprise and patient endurance of hardships." They added that Captain John Ross "had the merit of maintaining both health and discipline in a remarkable degree ... under circumstances the most trying to which British seamen were perhaps ever subjected." Through daily duty well done, by fidelity to work in hand, and by unfailing courage in dire extremities, Sir John Ross and his expeditionary force won their country's praise for heroic conduct. FOOTNOTE: [1] While the north magnetic pole constantly changes its position, yet such movements are very slow, and while at present its exact situation is not known, its locality is quite near this. THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE "He came not. Conjecture's cheek grew pale. Year after year, in no propitious gale His banner held its homeward way, And Science saddened at her martyr's stay." --ANON. Few persons realize the accompaniments of the prolonged search by England for the northwest passage, whether in its wealth of venturesome daring, in its development of the greatest maritime nation of the world, or in its material contributions to the wealth of the nations. Through three and a half centuries the British Government never lost sight of it, from the voyage of Sebastian Cabot, in 1498, to the completion of the discovery by Franklin in 1846-7. It became a part of the maritime life of England when Sir Martin Frobisher brought to bear on the search "all the most eminent interests of England--political and aristocratic, scientific and commercial." To the search are due the fur-trade of Hudson Bay, the discovery of continental America, the cod-fishery of Newfoundland, and the whale-fishery of Baffin Bay. For the discovery of the northwest passage various parliaments offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds sterling.