FRANKLINS GRAVE FOUND.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 251, 20 October 1904, Page 5

FRANKLINS GRAVE FOUND.

AN EXPEDITION'S ACHIEVEMENT. Eleven Had Failed. (Received 8.56 a.m.) LONDON, October 19. The "Daily Mail's" Ottawa correspondent states that Captain Low, the leader of the Neptune expedition, has found five graves at Beechy Island. The inscriptions showed that two were those of Sir John Franklin and some of his men, while three others belong to a later expedition. [Sir Jonn Franklin, with Captains Crozier and Mtijames, in lI.M. ships Erebus and Terror (carr}j::g In all 138 persons, sailed on iiis third Arctic expedition of discorery andsurvey. from Greenhithe, on l»th May, lv±->. Their last despatches were from the WhaioBsh Islands, dated July. 1545. Their protracted absence caused intense anxiety, and several expeditions wen- sent from England and elsewhere in search of them, and coats, provisions, clotfcins. and other necessaries were deposited in various places iv the Arctic seas by our own and by the American Uovernment, by .Lady Franklin, and numerous private persons. The Truelove. Captain Pai-fcer. whit-h arrived at Hull on 4th October. IS4'J. from Davis's Straits, brought intelligence (not afterwards confirmed) that the natives had seen Sir John Franklin's ships in the previous March, frozen up by the ice in l'rincc Itepent's Inlet. Other accounts were equally illusory. Her Mnjestv's Government, on Tth Ma»cu, 1800. offered a regard of £'JO,l)iH'-to any party of any country that should render efficient assistance to the crews of the missing ships. Sir John's first winter quarters were found at Beeehy Island by Captains Ominanney and Fenny. Beechy Island is in Barrow Strait, between North Somerset and North Oevon. There were 11 search expeditions.!