THE SEARCH FOR SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 645, 19 June 1852, Page 2

THE SEARCH FOR SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

Sir R. I. Murchison has published a letter, dated BGwrne-mouth, January 4, in which he says :— "Although I have during the last fortnight received letters from Lieut. Pirn, dated St. Petersburg, informing me that he has been most kindly received by all the Russian authorities to whom he had been addressed, and that he had been most zealously aided by Her Majesty's minister, Sir Hamilton Seymour, I desisted from alluding to a subject in which many of your leaders are deeply interested until some decisive step had been taken in respect to the bold proposal of the young British officer. His object was to traverse Siberia to its north eastern extremity, and thence to eiidpnvour to reach the mountainouslands far to the north of Behnng's Strait, beyond which it was conjectured that Franklin and his companions might be frozen up. Lieutenant Pirn had already infoimed me that the Russian geographers, and particularly the explorers of Nothern Siberia, with whom he had been put into communication, were opposed to a plan which, from their experience and acqunintance with the condition of the regions to he travelled over they looked upon as impracticable ; but that he stilPhoped to overcome all objections, and to have it in his power to risk his life in the good cause. 1 have now, however, leceived distinct information through His Excellency Jiaron de Brunnow, that the Imperial government, after having taken the most lively interest in this as in every former effort to rescue the missing expedition, had satisfied itself, on the unanimous report of the persons who had most studied the subject, that the execution of the plan winch the noble and courageous devotion of Lieutenant Pirn had led him to conceive, was

opposed by insurmountable obstacles. Under these ci i cum stances, thr> Empeior could not consent to allow the life tof a British officpi to be perilled in vain ; but that still being desirous of doing everything which might be po-sible, the Imperial government had placed our countryman in communication with M. Bner and i\l. Middenforfl—the one the explorer of Nova Zembla, the other of Nothern and Eastern Siberia— in the hope that by some other plan additional chances might be obtained of procuring the desired tidings. It is well known that the Imperial government hag all along facilitated by every exertion in its power our efforts to obtain such tiAigs whether in its Asiatic or American Aictic possessions ; and all the British officers who have served in Behring's Strait can testify to the friendly co-opeiation of the Russjan authorities in those desolate regions. However much, then, we may regret that the plan of reaching the unknown lands to the North of Behring's Strait by an expedition across Siberia must be given up, for reasons which will be fully explained at the next meeting of the Geographical Society, we must not abandon the hopeful idea that the Franklin expedition may have entered Wellington Channel, and many have worked its way to the westward, and that by carrying out some scheme, based on the principle of meeting our missing navigators we may still succeed in rescuing them. It was this feeling, founded on a true estimate of the noble and resolutp character of my fiiend, Sir John Franklin, wh'ch induced the gallant young Pirn to propound his adventurous scheme. It is on the same principle of meeting Franklin, that another project has been started, in the most geneious it anner, by Air. 33eafson, which I shall bring before the Royal Geographical Society at its next meeting, and by which it is pioposed to attain the same end, by penetrating- to the Noith of Behring's Strait in a small screw steamer. Let us thei eforp, trust that, in addition to any well concerted scheme devised by our admiralty for following jn the track of Franklin other means may be devised tbiough the co-operation of England and Russia, by which the intense anxiety that is felt may be set at rest. Above all, let us put away despondency until every possible means shall have been exhausted. Let us cling to the hope that, as five out of six Russian seamen were rescued providentially and brought back alive and well to Archangel, after passing upwards of six years in the frozen Arctic regions of Sjiitzbergen (where they obtained abundance of animal food), we may yet see a portion, at least, of our gallant missing ciews return, even though the supplies they carried out with them from this country may have been long ago exhausted." It is understood that Mr. Beatson, the spirited projector and commander of the privateexpedition about to proceed to Behring's Strait, has purchased a vessel, which has been taken into dock for the necessary strengthening. Tin's expedition receives much additional importance from the probability that obstacles, which, it is feared, may prove insuperable, appear to stand in the way of the execution by Lieutenant Pirn, of his scheme for searching the coast of Sibeiia. The first object of Captain Beatson will be to visit the island of New Siberia, northwest of Behring's Strait, which would have been the j ultimate resort of Lieutenant Pirn, had he succeeded in reaching the coasts of the mainland to the south of it.