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

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The "Herald" visited Kotzebue Sound, repassed the Straits before the arrival of the "Plover," and returned to winter in South America, with the intention of going northwards again next season.

The main object of the searching party entrusted to my charge was to trace the coast between the Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers, and the shores of Victoria and Wollaston Lands lying opposite to Cape Krusenstern. In a preceding page I have adduced reasons for believing that there is a passage to the northwards between these lands; and if so, its position makes it the most direct route from the continent to the unknown tract interposed between Cape Walker and Banks's Land, into which Sir John Franklin was expressly ordered to carry his ships. Should he have done so, and his egress by the way he entered be barred by the ice closing in behind him as already suggested, there remained a probability that the annual progression of the ice southwards would eventually carry the ships into Coronation Gulf, or, if abandoned before that event, their crews were to be sought for on their way to the continent.