the desert ice. The promised reward of £10,000 was adjudged to Dr. Rae and his men as the first discoverers of some traces of the expedition, and a very general desire was felt to pursue the research still further.

The British Government did not consider it right to risk more lives, or to spend more treasure, in this perilous enterprise, especially since Dr. Rae's information seemed to destroy all hopes of saving life. It devolved therefore upon the enthusiasm and devotedness of Lady Franklin to arouse her countrymen to follow up this new track, and endeavour to rescue, if not the lives of her husband and his companions, yet at least their reputation from oblivion.

Aided by many eminent philanthropic and scientific men, the Fox, a screw yacht, was purchased in 1857, and under the command of Captain M'Clintock proceeded on its northern voyage. After wintering on the ice, about the middle of July they reached Beechey Island depot. There a marble tablet sent out by Lady Franklin was erected. The inscription was as follows:

To the Memory of

FRANKLIN,

CROZIER, FITZJAMES,
And all their

Gallant Officers and Faithful Companions
Who have suffered and perished

In the cause of science

And the service of their country,
This Tablet

Is erected near the spot where they passed
Their first Arctic winter, and whence
They issued forth to conquer
Difficulties or to die.

It commemorates the grief of their admiring
Countrymen and friends, and the anguish,
Subdued by faith, of her who has

Lost, in the heroic leader of

The Expedition, the most
Devoted and affectionate of
Husbands.

"And so He bringeth them unto the haven where
they would be."
1855.

On the 1st of March in the following year, the Fox arrived at the Magnetic Pole. To the captain's great joy, he saw four natives approaching. None had previously been seen, which had caused him to fear that the journey would be fruitless. By means of Petersen, the interpreter, a conversation was at once begun. Discovery now rapidly followed upon discovery. One of the men had a naval button on his dress, which he explained to have come from some white people who were starved on an

island in a river. The next morning the whole population of the village, forty-five people, came out, and readily sold silver spoons, a silver medal which had belonged to Mr. A. M'Donald, assistant surgeon; part of a gold chain, several buttons, knives, and bows and arrows made of different parts of the wreck.

Coming over to King William's Island, Captain M'Clintock met with more natives who also knew about this wreck, of which they said little remained, as their countrymen had carried much of it away. They sold more plate, bearing the crests or initials of Franklin, Crozier, and M'Donald. An old woman also spoke of the white men who dropped down and died as they travelled to the river, of whom she said some were buried, and some were not. Proceeding on their explorations, on the 25th of May Captain M'Clintock came on a very painful relic, namely, the skeleton of a slight young man, who from his dress, and especially the loose bow-knot in which his handkerchief was tied, was judged to have been a steward or officer's servant; but the face and limbs had been gnawed away or broken by wild beasts. Near him was found a frozen pocket-book, a clothes-brush, and pocket horn comb; all which articles, had the Esquimaux discovered him, would have been stolen. The poor young fellow seems to have fallen down exhausted: probably fell asleep, and so died.

The discovery of a written record, soldered up in a thin tin cylinder, in a cairn at Point Victory, on the north-west of the island, speedily followed. We give an extract :

"April 25, 1848.-H.M. ships Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22d of April, five leagues W.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September, 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Capt. T. R. M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69° 37′ 42′′ N., long. 98° 41′ W. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June, 1847, and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men.

tion from everything else-namely, parts of two human skeletons. It was a sight which struck them all with horror; but no part of the skull of either was found which could lead to the identification of the persons, for they had both been the food of wolves.

A pair of worked slippers lay near to one, and by the other five watches. But the search for journals or pocket-books was again vain; five or six small books only were found-all devotional ones except the "Vicar of Wakefield." A small Bible also lay there, in which were whole passages underlined, and many marginal notes; and there were, besides, the covers of a New Testament and Prayer-book. No food was found in this boat, except tea and chocolate; but of other articles there was a great variety, including plate, with the well-known crests of many of the officers of the ships. This boat, which rested on a sledge, was about fifty miles from Point Victory, and seventy miles from the first skeleton found. It was directed towards the ships, as if returning to them. Perhaps a party had gone forward for fresh supplies, leaving these two in charge of the boat, and had not been able to return.

Captain M'Clintock was now most anxious to find the wreck itself; but no sign of her was to be seen, nor did he find any other relics.

The searching parties returned to the Fox. The return voyage home at once commenced, and on the 21st of September, Captain M'Clintock reached London. The relics brought home were deposited at the United Service Institution, and it is needless to state that those who had so nobly devoted their energies to the prosecution of this expedition were everywhere received with the hearty welcome so well merited.

Captain C. F. Hall, of the whaling barque George Henry, has made still more recent voyages to the Arctic regions, and ventures to draw some deductions in favour of yet discovering some of the survivors of Sir John Franklin's expedition; but we fear this is "hoping against hope;" and we cannot but acquiesce in the opinion of Captain M'Clintock that "it is wholly unlikely that any of the 134 men who sailed in the Erebus and Terror could have escaped death by taking refuge among the Esquimaux, as there were very few on the island; and these, generally, were so ready to give information that, had they helped the poor whites, they would certainly have spoken of it.

We have thus briefly sketched the career of an officer who served his country well for nearly half a century, and whose name will be enshrined among those great heroes of whose glory and whose fame England is justly proud.

Our narrative will fitly close with a brief description of the statue of Sir John Franklin in Waterloo Place, which has just been inaugurated in the presence of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir John Pakington.

"The memorial consists of a pedestal of polished granite, surmounted by a bronze statue 8 feet 4 inches in height. The sculptor (Mr. Noble) has sought to represent the moment when the great Arctic explorer announces to his officers and men that their work was accomplished-that a North-West Passage was discovered. He wears the uniform of a naval commander, but over that is a loose outer coat of fur, which suggests the bleakness of the region in which his life was lost. In one hand he holds telescope, chart, and compass. The sculptor's success in presenting a likeness of Franklin is pronounced to be complete by Lady Franklin herself, as well as by those eminent scientific and other men to whom the features and character of the hero were most familiar. In front, the pedestal is adorned by a bas-relief which represents the funeral of Sir John Franklin. Captain Crozier, to whom the death of his chief gave the command of the expedition, stands swathed in fur, as in the act of reading the burial service. Around him and the coffin of their great leader are gathered the officers and men of the Erebus and Terror. Beneath the bas-relief the following inscrip. tion is given:

FRANKLIN.

To the Great Arctic Navigator
And his brave Companions,

Who sacrificed their Lives in completing
The Discovery of the North-West Passage,
A.D. 1847.

Erected by the unanimous Vote of Parliament.

The back of the pedestal holds a chart of the Arctic regions in bronze, which shows the position of the two ships and their crews at the time of Franklin's death. On the north side of the pedestal are inscribed the names of those who belonged to the Erebus, and on the south the names of the officers and crew of the Terror. Each list of names is supplemented with the legend, "They forged the last link

with their lives."

A

HE Prophetic Almanacs of the last two centuries form a curious chapter in the history of the Books of the People." The superstitious practice formerly observed in all almanacs, but now almost exploded, of placing each limb of the body under a particular sign of the Zodiac, is of high antiquity, being attributed to Nechepsos, or Nerepsos, an Egyptian, and author of several treatises on astronomy, astrology, and medicine, who lived in the age of Sesostris. His object, we are told, was to enable the medical practitioners (who are supposed to have been of the priestly order), to apply suitable remedies to diseases affecting any particular member. From Egypt this superstition passed to the Greeks and Romans; from them to the Saracens; and being by the latter transmitted to the school of Salerno, it was acted upon in the medical practice of every European country. Such absurdities, assuredly, afford no very favourable indication of the vaunted science of that extraordinary people among whom they took their rise; but it would be rash to conclude that the attestations of the highest ancient authorities to the progress of the Egyptians in the sciences, at a remote period, are groundless, because their knowledge was mixed up with superstitions inconsistent with truth and sound philosophy.

Our ancestors certainly exceeded us in the depth of their predictions. In Shakspeare's day, for example, Leonard Digges, the Francis Moore of that period, not only prognosticated for the day, week, or year, but "for all time," as the title-page of his almanac shows: "A Prognostication everlastinge of right good effect, fruitfully augmented by the auctor, contayning plaine, briefe, pleasaunte, chosen rules to judge of the Weather by the Sunne, Moone, Starres, Comets, Rainebow, Thunder, Cloudes, with other extraordinarye tokens, not omitting the aspects of the Planets, with a briefe judgement for ever, of Plenty, Lucke, Sickness, Dearth, Warres, &c., opening also many natural causes worthy to be known." (1575.)

It is singular how long the human mind will cling to folly to which it is accustomed-long after the understanding is satisfied of its want of truth. As far back as 1607, we find the following prohibition of prophetic almanacs; and yet even at the present day, some wretched trash is published under the same title.

"All

conjurors and framers of prophecies and almanacs, exceeding the limits of allowable astrology, shall be punished severely in their persons; and we forbid all printers and booksellers, under the same penalties, to print, or expose for sale, any almanacs or prophecies which shall not first have been seen and revised by the archbishop, the bishop (or those who shall be ex pressly appointed for that purpose), and approved of by their certificates signed by their own hand, and, in addition, shall have permission from us or from our ordinary judges."

We have a volume of old almanacs now before us, the mere titles of which are worth enumerating, if they only show the amount of credulity possessed by one individual-the binder of the said volume. The almanacs are all for the same year, 1734, and they range as follows: The Woman's Almanac-Gadbury's DiaryWing's Almanac-Parker's Ephemeris, the fiveand-fortieth impression-John Partridge's Mer linus Liberatus-Francis Moore's Vox Stellarum -William Andrews' News from the StarsRichard Saunders' Apollo Anglicanus-Henry Coley's Merlinus Anglicus Junior-Salem Pearce's Celestial Diary-Edmund Weaver's British Telescope John Hartley's Angelus SideralisHenry Season's Speculum Anni-Poor Robin's Almanack after the Good Old Fashion, &c.

The lives of these worthy astrologers would form an instructive volume, but only some brief particulars of a few of them are known. Sometimes indeed we meet with a conceited fellow who prefaces his almanacwith his autobiography -Henry Season, "Professor of Physick, and Student in the Celestial Sciences," to wit. This Professor says, in his Preface to the Candid Reader, "I was born at the place I now live at, a village call'd Broomham, three miles from the town of Devizes in Wilts, on January the 23rd, but the year and hour I conceal; 'tis no point of prudence to reveal that, as the learned in astrology and my own experience have informed me; for should any one's nativity fall into the hands of an artist in astrology that is his enemy, he knows when to hurt him, because he knows when bad directions take place; cum multis aliis ways to circumvent and mischief him." He then enters into some particulars of his career and closes by saying, "Next year, if I write, I shall, in the place of this epistle, write a piece of poetry-an original copy in praise of the propagators of learning."

I.

One of the well-known Samuel Drew's early friends, having to travel much from home, over the Cornish Moors, and, having been set upon by robbers, was advised to have as his companion a Newfoundland dog-his conscience not permitting him to employ arms. This large dog made the acquaintance of a smaller one, bred in the same house, and the following incident happened when Mr. Drew was residing at Polpea. The great metaphysician says:

"Our dairy was under a room which was used occasionally as a barn and apple-chamber, into which the fowls sometimes found their way, and, in scratching among the chaff, scattered the dust on the pans of milk below, to the great annoyance of my mother-inlaw. In this, a favourite cock of hers was the chief transgressor. One day, in harvest, she went into the dairy, followed by the little dog; and finding dust again thrown on her milk-pans, she exclaimed, 'I wish that cock were dead.' Not long after, she being with us in the harvest field, we observed the little dog dragging along the cock, just killed, which, with an air of triumph, he laid at my mother-in-law's feet. She was dreadfully exasperated at the literal fulfilment of her hastily uttered wish, and snatching a stick from the hedge, attempted to give the luckless dog a beating. The dog, seeing the reception he was likely to meet with, left the bird, and ran off-she brandishing her stick, and saying in a loud, angry tone, 'I'll pay thee for this by-and-by.' In the evening, she was about to put her threat into execution, when she found the little dog established in a corner of the room, and the large one standing before it. Endeavouring to fulfil her intention, by first driving off the large dog, he gave her plainly to understand that he was not at all disposed to relinquish his post. She then sought to get at the small dog behind the other; but the threatening gesture and fiercer growl of the large one sufficiently indicated that the attempt would be not a little perilous. The result was that she was obliged to abandon her design. In killing the cock, I can scarcely think that the dog understood the precise import of my step-mother's wish, as his immediate execution of it would seem to imply. The cock was a more recent favourite, and had received some attentions which had previously been bestowed upon himself. This, I think, had led him to entertain a feeling of hostility to the bird, which he did not presume to indulge until my mother's tone and manner indicated that the cock was no longer under her protection. In the power of communicating with each other, which these dogs evidently possessed, and which, in some instances, has been displayed by other species of animals, a faculty seems to be developed of which we know very little. On the whole, I never remember to have met with a case in which, to human appearance, there was a nearer approach to moral perception than in that of my father's two dogs."

II.

The Ettrick Shepherd, in his essay on the shepherd's dog, says, "It will appear strange to hear a dog's reasoning faculty mentioned as it has been, but I have hardly ever seen a shepherd's dog do anything without perceiving his reasons for it. I have often amused myself in calculating what his motives were for such and such things, and I generally found them very cogent ones." Indeed, the shepherd's dog, the colley, exhibits the race, perhaps in its chief aspects, in the highest state of culture. A shepherd's dog is invaluable, and above all price. A single shepherd and his dog, the Ettrick Shepherd tells us, will do more in gathering a flock of sheep from a Highland farm than twenty shepherds could do without dogs. shepherd's uncle, John Hogg, one Sabbath afternoon, among the hills at a Cameronian Sacrament, was indisposed to leave the afternoon service; and yet he was compelled to have his ewes at a certain place by a certain hour; so he gave his dog a quiet hint; instantly she went away, took to the hills, and gathered the whole flock of ewes and brought them as carefully and quietly as if the shepherd himself had been with her. The thousand people assembled at the Sacrament, saw with astonishment the feat, for the flock was scattered over two large and steep hills.

Dr. Brown (Hora Subsecive) writes:

The

Mr. Carruthers of Inverness told me a new story of those wise sheep-dogs. A butcher from Inverness had purchased some sheep at Dingwall, and giving them in charge to his dog, left the road. The dog drove them on till, coming to a toll, the toll-wife stood before the drove, demanding her dues. The dog looked at her, and, jumping on her back, crossed his forelegs over her arms. The sheep passed through, and the dog took his place behind them, and went on his way.