GREAT ARCTIC TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

GREAT ARCTIC TRAGEDY.

FRANKLIN'S COMRADES. DISCOVERY BY EXPLORER. UNVEILED AFTER EIGHTY YEARS. Neaa-ly eighty years after the mysterious disappearance of tho ill-fated Franklin expedition to discover the North-West Passage, the bones of two of its members have been found. The dramatic revelation was made in stirringly simple language to the Royal Geographical Society by tho Danish explorer, Dr. Rand Rasmussen, who incidentally threw fresh light on that obscure, grim tragedy of the frozen north.

A cairn was built over the bodies as they lay, and tho two flags—the British and tho Danish —hoisted at half-mast. " We were glad to feel, as they perhaps might havo been glad to feel," said Dr. Rasmussen, " that tho work for which they gave their lives was still going on.

While himself making the Passage in tho course of a 3-J; years' expedition, principally to study the Eskimo, which he completed last year, Dr. Rasmussen encountered, at Pelly Bay, an old man named Iggiararsuk. Iggiararsuk's father had actually met somo of Franklin's party, and had given the following account to his rnn:—

"Wo were out hunting seal. Suddenly we heard the shouting of strange men from the land (this was King William's Island). We ran up to them, and saw that they were white men. They were thin, with sunken cheeks, like starving men. Wo took them to our tent and gave them seal meat and blubber. They pointed toward the south, towards the Great Fish River, and made signs by which we understood that there had formerly been many comrades together, but only few were left. Afterwards, at another time, we found their ship. It was out in the ice between King William's Island and Victoria Land. Many dead men were on the ship, and we could see that they had died of a sickness. Also there was found a boat, with six dead men; there was food enough, and it seemed that these also had died of a sickness."

" Iggiararsuk then gave me the position of four different spots," continued Dr. Rasmussen, " where lay the bones of Franklin's men. I succeeded in locating two of these places, one in King William's Island, the other on the shore of Starvation Cove, in tho Adelaide Peninsula. " We found tho bodies. With them were still some fragments of clothing, enough to show that they were actually white men. " A cairn was then built over the bodies as they lay, and tho two flags—their own d.nd ours—hoisted at' half-mast.

"We were glad to feel, as they perhaps might have been glad to feel," added the explorer, " that the work for which they gave their lives was still going on." Dr. Rasmussen further discovered that all the iron then in use among the tribe at Pelly Bay, in the form of knives, harpoon heads, arrow heads, and the like, came from the ship of a white man that had wintered in Felix Harbour and Victoria Harbour 100 years before. " This, of course, was Ross," he commented. Altogether the expedition covered 20,000 miles without mishap, conducting its investigations from Greenland along tho north coast of Canada, round the north of Alaska g,nd across the Behring Sea to Siberia. "We met with kindliness and helpfulness all through," he said, " except in Soviet Russia." Learning of tho existence of a strange tribe in the Barren Grounds, Dr. Ras-' mussen made a toilsome sledge journey—occupying two months—inland from Chesterfield .Inlet, Hudson Bay. On the greSt lake of Yathkied he found a tribe no record of which had ever ap-. peared, and many of whom had never seen a white man.

An inland tribe, they were so ignorant ol const life that thsy asked what the horns of seal were like! "And when we happened to arrive with some walrus meat on our sledges, they forbade us to cut it up, as they did not know what it was.

Their mode of lifo is the most primitive that is known,, to exist, and everything seems to indicate that they ar« themgves a remainder of the' aboriginal