ADMIRAL McCLINTOCK.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 8, 10 January 1908, Page 2

ADMIRAL McCLINTOCK.

THE HERO OF THE FRANKLIN

SEARCH

(By H. M. Tomlinson, in London Morning Herald.) ,! Sir Leopold McClintock, whose death announced, was born as far back as 1819. Yet, until quite recently, his small alert figure was a familiar one at Orchard Wharf, Blackwall. All the Trinity men know him so well (for he ■was an Elder Brother) that they were rather apt to forget that their little ■chief had a great reputation as an Arctic explorer. "Oh, yes," said one of them to the present writer, " I did once hear that he found Franklin " ; and then casually dropped a subject in which he was not in the least interested. But to many of us McClintock is a name which goes with that of Sabine, Bichardson, Back, Beechey, Dease, Simpson, Rao* Ross, and Parry—you will, know them all, and many more liesides—as a magic maker. It is possible—nay, it is established, that those indefatigable men performed wonders in definitely filling in coast lines on the charts, where had been ■only vague and indeterminate dots. They made remarkable arrays of meteorological statistics, they filled numberless tubes wtih "deep-sea ooze; sedulously went on with magnetic observations, in the face of dire difficulties, and so widened the science of navigation. All sorts of learned societies were enriched with their collections of data. Those results may have been the fine gold for which they searched; but, frankly, to most of us unlearned ones, it is dross. We are really glad that they had such sound apologies for their I voyages—with those apologies, and they stand excused before all practical people, without such excellent apolojgies' for their journeys, and no doubt there would have been no money forthcoming for their travels. Most ■excellent money! ROMANCE AND TRAVEL. Well, the learned societies have got •the data entombed; and we, we have got an imperishable picture of the little community of the intrepid, with, -one might say, their colours nailed to the mast stump, no more than old boot-leather and a half biscuit between them and the end of everything, flinging the bodies for which they have no further use to the clamouring brutalities, and so, in-that assault on a breach into the unknown, becoming ttnreturning travellers to a yet farther and darker bourne. The deathless human! I love romance. I could never read Scott. But I found all the glamour ! and the rose-pink I wanted, as a boyj in fat, dun-coloured volumes of Arctic travels at the City library. My pala--din, crusader, and. knight,was an unpicturesque figure in skins and furs, who would tackle, single-handed, whole battalions of miles, with a lump •of pemmican in- his pocket; his only banners those of the aurora in the night sky, the only audience for his acts the silent hummocks. I would be his sole companion daily (during my dinner hour). I would leave him 'dying in King William's Land, and go hack to Leaden Hall Street at lo'clock. _ , chief of my magic-makers was Sir Leopold McClintock s v Voyage of the Fox." Sir Leopold, I suppose, was the last survivor of the many who went to look for Franklin., Between 1845' and' '55 there were very many expeditions to learn what had become orSir John, his men, and the Erebup and Terror. Why that expedition came to such a dreadful «nd is obvious to all who have seen the relics at Greenwich. It does, not appear to have been imagined that the Polar v regions were really -very ;«old.and inhospitable. * ""■'■:. *"*" THE VOYAGE OF THE FOX. In 1850 McClintock was an officer on the Assistance during a search; and <?apt. Ommanney went ashore to examine a cairn that had been, noticed on Beechey Island. It was then that the first traces of the lost expedition were found. When, in April, 1857, the Government decided to abandon the search, Lady Franklin purchased the small three-quarter yacht Fox, of 177 tons, and McClintock was chosen as commander. The FflK. iad a .crew of 25 <17 of them^experiericed Arctic -men), and she sailed .that July. I ice, prevented the- Fox making Barrow Strait that year. STie became Unbound in Baffin's Bay,1 narrowly -escaping disaster herself on several oooasions. Sjir. Lsftjiold's journal ot their experiences, written :as^ a duty, and a mem record of'the day's work to submit to those at home who had •employed them, is live English, every •word of it. Talk of style and art! It is surprising how near even a plain man can get to making literature when he has something to say. Here, for instance:— \ . "This evening we gathered round the remains of poor Scott, reposing under the Union Jack, and read the burial service by the light of lanterns. The greater part of the burial service was read onboard; the body was then placed on a sledge, and drawn by his messmates to a short distance from ■the ship, where" a hole had been cut an the ice; it was then committed to the deep. ' " What a scene it was. The lonely Fox, almost buried in snow, completely isolated from the habitable world, her colours half-mast high and her bell mournfully tolling; our little procession slowly marching over the rough and frozen sea, guided by lanterns, amid the dark and dreary •depth of Arctic winter; the deathlike stillness, the intense cold, the threatening aspect of a murky, overcast sky, and all this heightened by one -of those strange phenomena which are but seldom seen here, a complete iialo encircling the moon, through which passed a horizontal band of pale light that encompassed the heavens. HOW FRANKLIN DIED. Cannot one see it? By April, 1858, the lox got away from the ice, and reached Beechey Island, after many wild adventures, on August 11th. They wished to get to the west of ißeilott Strait, and sailed south thither. But it was quite a moot point that the Strait existed at all. It was supposed to be a passage between the island of North Somerset and Boothia Felix. It proved to be a narrow channel, a mil© wide, 20 miles long, with precipitous shore of granite

.and with tide races, dangerous with tumult of driven bergs, which drove the Fox back four times. That winter they harboured near, and the next spring sledge journeys were organised south to King William's Land to search for Franklin relics. Of course, history has the result, f One of MeCKntock'fi parties found an old boat on a desolate beach; and, writes the skipper:— "There was that in the boat which transfixed us with awe. It was portions of two human skeletons. One was of a slight young person; the other of a large, strongly-made, middle-aged man. The former was found in the bow of the boat, but was too much disturbed to enable Hodgson to judge whether he had died there; large and powerful animals, probably wolves, had destroyed much of this skeleton,, probably that of an officer. " The other skeleton was in a somewhat moire perfect state," and was enveloped with clothes and furs; it lay across the boatj under the afterthwart. Close beside it were found fiye watches, and there were two doublebarrelled guns-r-one . barrel in each loaded and cocked—standing muzzle up against the boat's . side. Five or six small books were found, and all of them devotional, except the " Vicar of Wakefield."