A man of Franklin's type did not let the squadron remain idle, and it is certain that the shores of Victoria and Boothia Peninsula were explored and the magnetic pole visited and definitely relocated. The only sledge-party of which there exists a record is that which left the ships on May 24, 1847, consisting of Lieutenant Graham Gore, Mate Des Voeux, and six men. Its small crew, led by a junior officer, indicates that its objects were subordinate to those pursued by other parties. Most probably it was a hunting-party in pursuit of the game of King William Land, which now was a matter of grave urgency to Franklin. The excessive number of empty meat-cans at Beechey Island is believed to be due to the inferior character of the meat which led to much being condemned. The large number of deaths which quite immediately followed Gore's journey may well have been associated with the coming of scurvy from malnutrition. At all events, Gore reached Point Victory, King William Land, on May 28, and there built a cairn and deposited the one of the two only records of Franklin's squadron of any kind that have been found.[4] It set forth Franklin's discoveries around Cornwallis Land, the wintering at Beechey Island, and the besetment and wintering in the pack of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ in 70 deg. 05' N., 98 deg. 23' W. It ended with the encouraging statement that all were well and Sir John Franklin in command. From the Crozier record, to be mentioned later, it is known that evil days followed immediately the favorable conditions set forth by Gore. Sir John Franklin was spared the agony of watching his men and officers perish one by one of exhaustion and starvation, for the record tells us that he died on the ice-beset _Erebus_, June 11, 1847, fourteen days after the erection of the Point Victory cairn. Death was now busy with the squadron, and within the next eleven months seven officers, including Gore, and twelve seamen perished, probably from scurvy. Franklin's last days must have been made happy by the certainty that his labors had not been in vain, since it was clearly evident that he had practically finished the two labors dearest to his heart--"the completion of the survey of the northern coasts of North America and the accomplishment of the northwest passage." The drift of the ships to the southwest with the main pack carried them to within sixty-five miles of Cape Herschel, and the chart taken by Franklin showed a distance of only fifty-five miles of unknown lands to connect the discoveries of Ross with those of Dease and Simpson. Doubtless the evidence of the drift had been supplemented by an exact survey of the coast by sledge. It is incredible to assume that the energetic Franklin allowed his men to remain inert for eight months within a score of miles of unknown lands.