Regarding the old and new continents as in reality a connected body of land, with a polar depression, we may expect that the great range of American mountains is continued in a straight line, from the mouth of the McKenzie river, obliquely across the Polar sea, and connects with the Ural; and that along the axis of the chain, protuberant masses will emerge above the sea level, constituting an archipelago of islands, from Nova Zembla to the McKenzie; and that these islands, causing an accumulation of ice, and arresting its general tendency to the southward, is the barrier which Sir John Franklin was finally stopped by, in a situation where he could neither advance nor return. With the map before us, and the data afforded by former voyages, and guided by these theoretical views, respecting the prevailing direction of the winds and the character of the seasons, we should locate Sir John Franklin near latitude 80°, and longitude 145°, in 1851; and as the seasons would afterwards become more severe, we may consider that he has not been since able to change his locality, and dare not desert his ships.
No mere stranger can feel a deeper interest than the author, in view of the hard fortunes of these hardy explorers, and he would not lightly advance such opinions, did he not suppose they were in some degree reliable. In 1832, he himself crossed the Atlantic, for the purpose of offering himself to the Geographical Society of London, intending to be landed as far northward as possible, with a single companion,[49] from which point he purposed to follow the coast line on foot, with cautious discretion as to seasons, confident that, with arms and ammunition, he could support himself for many years. It has always been a grave error in all these northern land expeditions, that they have been too unwieldy, too much encumbered with the comforts and luxuries of civilization at the outset, and too much loaded with a philosophical paraphernalia, for a pioneering survey,--and cherishing too fondly the idea that the wide shores of the Arctic sea could be explored in a single season. Had the British government established a few posts in the Arctic regions in the beginning,--one, for instance, in Lancaster sound, another in Behring's Straits, and a third near the mouth of the Coppermine, volunteers of sufficient scientific attainments might have been procured, to banish themselves to these inhospitable regions for a term of years, if assured of triennial supplies; and in this way, by summer boat-parties and winter expeditions, over land or ice, the explorations could have been gradually extended, and a greater knowledge of the polar regions might have been acquired, with an immense saving both of life and money. In 1832 the author's plan was deranged, by finding that Captain Back was about setting out in quest of Ross, who had then been some four years absent. This officer had all his party engaged when the author waited upon him in Liverpool, and no notice was taken of a modified plan which he forwarded to the Society at his suggestion. It was therefore abandoned.