them small hope of finding any of their missing friends alive. The neighborhood was most minutely searched for some writing that should indicate what direction Sir John had taken on leaving that spot; but, excepting the inscriptions upon the headboards, not a syllable was found. The total result of the discoveries up to the end of 1850 was, that all had gone well with Sir John during the first year of his exploration.

This numerous fleet wintered in the arctic waters, and sent out marching-parties and sledding-parties, which made many discoveries of a geographical nature, but added nothing whatever to our knowledge of Sir John Franklin's fate. Not another trace of him was discovered that winter. In the summer of 1851, one after another, all the vessels returned home.

The public was still unsatisfied. The news of the discovery of the encampment inflamed anew the zeal of the people, which was further increased when it became known that dissensions had existed among the various independent commanders, and that, in consequence, the search had been unsystematic and incomplete. And now arose a theory that, around the Pole, there is a vast open sea, into which Sir John had sailed, and from which he could not escape. Nonsensical as this idea now seems, it had many vehement advocates in the press, and led astray several of the able commanders who were determined to continue the search. Lady Franklin was not deceived by it, because she knew two things: first, that her husband was ordered to keep to the South; and, second, — that her husband was a man whose religion it was to obey orders. Her ship, the Albert, sent out by her in 1852, was almost the only vessel that attempted to look for Sir John where alone he was likely to be found.

Immense preparations were made to renew the search in 1852, although seven years had then clapsed since the departure of Sir John Franklin from England. Captain Sir Edward Belcher, in command of a fleet of five thoroughly equipped vessels, sailed from England, and proceeded through Baffin's Bay to the waters beyond it. After the short summer ended, Captain Belcher set on foot a system of sledding expeditions, which were kept up during the whole of the arctic winter.

Lady Franklin's two vessels were in the same region, from one of which a marching party went out and performed a journey of sixty-three days, in a temperature that varied from 50° to 90° below zero. All these exertions were fruitless. The only result of this year's search was the finding of a piece of iron and a part of a door, which might have belonged to one of the lost ships. They were in possession of a party of Esquimaux, who could give no intelligible account of how they came by them. Meanwhile, Dr. Rae had been exploring the coast between the Mackenzie and the Coppermine, but he found nothing except a portion of a ship's ice plank, which, he believed, had belonged to one of the missing vessels.

Through 1853 the search was vigorously continued. This year was signalized by Dr. Kane's brilliant but fruitless attempt to get into that imaginary polar sea of which mention has just been made. Dr. Kane spent a winter farther north than any of the explorers, and experienced, at one time, a temperature of 990 below zero. He spent two winters in the arctic world, and only escaped at last by abandoning his ship, and marching to one of the Danish settlements in Greenland, a distance of thirteen hundred miles.

It was reserved for Dr. John Rae, a mere pedestrian, to reveal to the world all that is ever likely to be known of the fate of his countrymen. Having totally failed in his explorations between the two rivers, Mackenzie and Coppermine, he started, early in 1854, on foot, to examine a certain part of the coast of Regent's Inlet. In April, at the end of this inlet, he met a party of Esquimaux, who had in their possession various articles of silver ware, such as were known to belong to officers of the Erebus and Terror. He eagerly questioned these men. He learned from them that, early in 1850, a party of Esquimaux, who were killing seals on King William's Land, had fallen in with a party of white men, about forty in number, who were slowly and wearily dragging sleds toward the south. None of the white men could speak Esquimaux, but they learned, by signs, that the ships of this party had been crushed by ice, and that they were then going south to shoot deer. They further assured Dr. Rae, in answer to his repeated questions, that there

was no old man in the party-no man sixty-four years of age, which Sir John Franklin would have been in 1850. The white men, they said, were very thin and tired, and all of them had hold of the sled rope except one. The Esquimaux further stated, that as late as the month of May, 1850, some of their tribe had heard shots in the direction in which the white men had marched, and that late in the same season, they had found thirty-five unburied bodies of white men, and some graves, as well as a great number of guns, watches, vessels, and other articles, fragments of which they still had and exhibited. They believed that these men had starved to death, and that, before all had perished, they had began to devour one another. They inferred this from the condition of some of the bodies.

Dr. Rae, being unable to follow up this important clue, sent home the news, and, early in 1855, Mr. James Anderson and a party were despatched by the Hudson's Bay Company to the spot designated by the Esquimaux as the scene of the final catastrophe. He was unable to reach it, but he found abundant confirmation of the story related to Dr. Rae by the Indians. Among a great number of articles known to have belonged to the lost ships, he found a plank with the word Terror painted upon it, and a stick on which was carved the word Stanley, the name of the surgeon of the Erebus. The natives all made signs that these articles had belonged to a party of white men who had starved to death several years before.

Here the search would have been discontinued but for the zeal and energy of Lady Franklin. She could not be content with this vague and traditional information, and, under her auspices, Captain M'Clintock, in a yacht of one hundred and twenty tons, made his way to the scene, and brought home a large number of relics of the ill-fated expedition. She could no longer doubt that the report originally brought by Dr. Rae was the truth, and nothing of much importance has since been added to it.

This prolonged search for a handful of men presents a curious contrast to the recklessness with which human life is frequently risked and destroyed. We kill forty thousand of one another in a great battle without the slightest remorse; but if a poor little child goes astray in the woods, the population of half

a dozen towns engages eagerly in the search for it, day and night, till its fate is ascertained. Thousands of England's people are permitted to perish every year for want of food and care, and no one regards the fact; but let a few men be lost in the polar ice, and the resources of the empire are lavished in the endeavor to rescue them. Such a creature is man!

The search, I may add, was more creditable to the heart than to the head of England. Nine-tenths of the force employed was wasted. The ships sent through Behring Straits, and those which sought to enter the imaginary Polar Sea, might as well have remained at home. The only vessels which came near accomplishing the object of their voyage were the two or three which pressed on in the course marked out in Sir John Franklin's orders, and which all who understood the man must have known that he would adhere to as long as possible. Those orders, in fact, were nothing but the formal or official statement of his own convictions as to the course which he ought to take.

26

VOLTAIRE AND CATHERINE OF RUSSIA.

NEXT to Frederick the Great, Catherine II., of Russia was the most renowned monarch of her time. Eighty years ago the world was filled with her fame, and the Russian people to this day regard her as the true successor of Peter the Great.

She had not a drop of Russian blood in her veins. She was the daughter of a poor German prince, who, at the time of her birth, was a major-general in the Prussian army. Her baptismal names were Sophia-Augusta-Frederika, and she was usually styled the Princess Sophia. Born in 1729, she lived until her fourteenth year at the little German city, the garrison of which her father commanded. She was educated in a very simple and rational manner, and associated familiarly with the children of the respectable families of the town. Her mother, who was a woman of spirit and eminent good sense, took care to stifle in her young mind the family pride so common in the princely houses of Germany. She required her to salute the ladies of her society by kissing their robes in the fashion of the time, and caused her to be thoroughly instructed in useful knowledge. At the age of fourteen, when she was residing at the court of Frederick, she was merely remarked as a lively, robust, and well-behaved girl. No one could have supposed it probable that she was destined one day to reign over the most extensive empire in Europe, and by her arts and arms to make it still more extensive and powerful.

The ruler of Russia at that time was the Empress Elizabeth, a woman sunk in vice and debauchery, and without any lineal heir to her crown. She had selected as her successor her nephew, a young German prince, whom she had brought to Moscow, and was educating in the Greek religion. Upon this