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New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5885, 27 September 1880, Page 4

In another column will be found a telegram from New York, which appears to be an important one, and yet it is provokingly obscure. It is said that an American Arctic Exploring .party have discovered " the remains of Sir John Franklin's Expedition " after sledging for eleven months, and folio wiog the route taken by the crewa of the Erebus and Terror. There is either a gof> d deal of mixing truth and fiction in the above, or'the telegram as. sent conveys a meaning which it was never intended to be expressed. No clue is given aa to what exploring party has been eleven months in sledges going over the frozen ground of the cold. North; nor is much more light thrown upon what " the remains" of Franklin's Expedition may be which have been found. Whether "the remains" are to be understood as those of Sir John Franklin himself, the date of whose death is now well known— June 11, 1847—0r the remains of the last of the Darty as they pursued their way to the McKenzie river in order to reach some of the stations of the Hudson's Bay Company, we are left wholly in the dark. That "remains" of some of the party may be found now and then as exploration is made in the northern part of the American Continent, there is no donbt. Captain McClintocb, in 1859, found many traces of the ill-fated expedition, and brought home indisputable evidence of the fate of the great bulk of the crew of the two ships that Sir John Franklin sailed in charge of in IS4S. At Ross Cairn and Point Victory remains of some of tbe party were found, and at the latter place a tin case was obtained containing a paper signed by Captaiu Fitzjamea on 25th April, 1848, stating where and when the Erebus and Terror were abandoned, and giving the date of Sir John Franklin's death, &o. But the full records of that eventful expedition and retreat f.oni the ice-bound ships have not been found, and various conjectures have been made in respect to them. As the Erebns and Terror were frozen in, there was ample time to remove all the journals kept on board the ships, and whether these have been taken on by the main body as they made their way towards the McKenzie river, or were deposited in some cairn in the hope that they would be picked up by some exploring party sent in search of them id a moot point to the present day. Both views have their advocates, and several places have been indicated as likely to contain these valuable records. It may be one of these depots that have been found by the American party, or the final haltingplace of the main body have been found by some party sent overland from Hudson Bay district; but under like supposition it is not likely that tho explorers have been eleven months continuously in the sledges. In the coirse of time that statement will probably be modified or explained away. It will also be of interest to know what party has made the discovery. About a year auo Mr. Bennett, of the XTew York Herald, despatched the Jeannetta from San Francisco, for the purpose of trying to reach the North Pole by way of Behring's Strait, and should the successful explorers have been despatched from that vessel as she took up her winter quarters, it is probable that " the remains "

been^^ further development of Z tartar £;.