Mr. Back, after innumerable hardships, returned to Fort Enterprise March 17, 1821, having travelled over 1,100 m., sometimes two or three days without tasting food, with no covering at night but a blanket and deerskins, and with the thermometer ranging between 47° and 57° below zero. On June 30, 1821, the party having dragged their canoes and supplies from Fort Enterprise to the Coppermine, 80 m., embarked on that stream and floated seaward. They reached the sea July 18, and immediately commenced paddling to the east. They sailed and paddled along shore 550 m., and imagined themselves upon the point of emerging into the vast Arctic-ocean, when, to their dismay, they discovered that they had just reached the bottom of a huge bay. With but three days' provisions remaining, they turned back, Sept. 1, and, unable even to reach their starting point, built two small canoes of their larger ones, and ascended Hood river, a short distance west of Point Turnagain, the spot where they gave up further progress eastward.

Short of food, in a country deserted by animals, ill provided with all that could facilitate their progress, eating the remains of their old shoes and whatever scraps of leather they had, obliged from exhaustion to abandon their canoes when they came to rapids, subsisting at the last upon rock tripe and mosses, disappointed in finding assistance at a station where they had expected it, the sufferings of the party were almost unparalleled, and such as but few men could have endured. They lost two of their companions, and in July, 1822, reached York Factory, whence they had started three years before. In these three years they had made a journey of over 5,500 m., without accomplishing their object. - Meantime, Captains Parry and Lyon, in the Fury and Hecla, made Southampton island, the terminus of Hudson strait, early in August, 1821, and immediately steered to the north up Fox channel. Passing a bay hitherto unknown, which they named after the duke of York, they entered Repulse bay, in the hope of finding here an outlet toward the Arctic ocean. Leaving Repulse bay, they started upon the exploration of a hitherto entirely unknown region. They made slow progress, exploring every indentation of the coast.

Toward the close of September the ice began to accumulate, and Parry was obliged to cut into a large floe, and make there a winter harbor for his vessels. It was July before they were once more free of ice, and able to make progress on their voyage. They made their way up Fox channel slowly, against a current setting to the southward, and reached, Aug. 14, the small island of Igloolik, situated at the entrance of a strait called afterward the strait of the Fury and Hecla. The ships were long detained here by ice, reached the middle of the strait only in September, and were obliged to return to Igloolik for the winter, Oct. 30. The next spring (1823) proved unfavorable. The expeditions by land were able to effect but little, on account of the extreme ruggedness of the shore. The first week in August was past before the ships were released from their harbor; and Parry, who saw all advance to the north prevented, returned home, arriving in England in October, 1823. - Four expeditions were now fitted out. The first, consisting of two ships, under Parry, was to try Prince Regent inlet, which it was supposed would be found to open at its southern extreme into the Arctic sea.

The second party, under the command of Franklin, was to descend the Mackenzie river to the sea, and there divide, one party turning to the east, the other endeavoring to penetrate westward, even to Behring strait. Captain Beechey, in the Blossom, was despatched around Cape Horn, to sail through Behring strait and make headway to the east as far as Kotzebue sound, where he was to wait for Franklin's overland party. The fourth expedition (Capt. Lyon, in the Griper) was to pass to the south of Southampton island, up Sir Thomas Rowe's Welcome, to Repulse bay; then to cross the Melville isthmus, and survey the coast as far as Franklin's Point Turnagain. This expedition was unfortunate; the vesssel was twice nearly wrecked, and the expedition was abandoned when yet 80 m. distant from Repulse bay. Parry's expedition sailed in May, 1824, entered Lancaster sound in September, got into the ice, and was obliged to winter in Port Bowen, near the entrance of the sound. The following July, when starting forward again, the Fury was wrecked, and Parry returned to England in the Hecla, with a double crew.

The only object gained by this disastrous expedition was a contrivance whereby the compass was made to work perfectly under all circumstances, and in all places, no matter how near the magnetic pole, thus obviating a most serious difficulty in arctic navigation. This was accomplished by simply placing a small circular plate of iron near the compass. - We come now to Franklin's expedition. The officers forming his staff were Dr. Richardson, Lieut. Back, Mr. Kendall, and Mr. T. Drummond, a naturalist. They arrived at Fort Chipewyan in July, 1825; passed on to Great Bear lake, where the party were to winter; and thence a small party with Franklin descended the Mackenzie to the sea, which they reached at a point in lat. 69° 14', lon. 135° 57', 1,045 m. from Great Slave lake. On June 28, 1826, the whole party again started from their quarters down the Mackenzie. The expedition separated, according to the previously planned course of operations. Franklin, going to the westward, reached the sea, and penetrated as far west as Return Reef, in lat. 70° 24' and lon. 149° 37' W., whence on Aug. 18 he set out on his return to the Mackenzie, the weather becoming bad, and he being unaware that Beechey was waiting for him but 146 m. to the westward.

The latter, in the Blossom, had passed through Behring strait and anchored near Chamisso island, in Kotzebue sound, on July 22. He waited here till the advancing season made further stay dangerous, and then sailed for Petropavlovsk. The following year (1827) he again anchored in Kotzebue sound, but of course did not meet Franklin's party as he had hoped. Franklin traced the coast for 374 m. from the mouth of the Mackenzie. His voyage extended over 2,000 m. The other party, under Dr. Richardson, accomplished but little. The whole expedition wintered at Great Bear lake, where Franklin instituted a series of observations on terrestrial magnetism. - In 1806 Mr. Scoresby, a whaleman and private discoverer, accompanied by his son, had penetrated as far as 81° 30' north, further than any one had gone before him. Buchan and Franklin so completely failed in the ship expedition in 1818, that Mr. Scoresby was led to advise an expedition to proceed by boats so fixed on sledges as to be easily dragged over the ice. Capt. Parry received the command of an expedition fitted out in accordance with this idea. Two boats, covered, well built, and set upon sledges, were to be landed upon the northern shore of Spitzbergen, whence they were to be dragged or sailed as ice or water presented itself.