Читать книгу Arctic Searching Expedition (Sir John Richardson) - comprehensive & illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition) онлайн

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"Other parties may be despatched, as might appear desirable to the commander of the expedition, according to circumstances; but the steam-launches should certainly be employed to keep up the communication between the ships, to transmit such information for the guidance of each other as might be necessary for the safety and success of the undertaking.

(Signed) "James C. Ross,

Captain, R. N.

"Athenæum, 2 December, 1847."

By a subsequent arrangement between Sir James Ross and myself, under the sanction of the Admiralty, I undertook to deposit pemican at Fort Good Hope and Point Separation on the Mackenzie, and Capes Bathurst, Parry, Krusenstern, and Hearne, on the sea-coast, for the use of Sir James Ross's detached parties.

The Beering's Straits expedition was composed of the "Herald," Captain Kellet, then employed in surveying the Pacific coasts of America, and the "Plover," Commander Moore. The vessels were expected to arrive in Beering's Straits about the 1st of July, 1848, and were directed to "proceed along the American coast as far as possible, consistent with the certainty of preventing the ships being beset by the ice." A harbour was to be sought for the "Plover" within the Straits, to which that vessel was to be conducted; and two whale-boats were to go on to the eastward in search of the missing voyagers, and to communicate, if possible, with the Mackenzie River party. The "Plover" was fitted out in the Thames in December, 1847; but having been found to leak when she went to sea, was compelled to put into Plymouth for repair, and did not finally leave England until February, 1848. This tardy departure, conjoined with her dull sailing, prevented her from passing Beering's Straits at all in 1848; but she wintered near Cape Tschukotskoi, on the Asiatic coast, just outside of the Straits.