Volume 5 — THE GRAVE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

Sir John Richardson has just published, in London, a very valuable work, embracing the results of his recent travels and adventures in the polar regions, in search of the brave navigator who is probably buried under their eternal snows. As a narrative it is not particularly interesting; it is rich rather in scientific facts and observations. It has northern landscapes, painted by an observer who combines scientific knowledge with the taste of a lover of nature; exhibitions of zeal and endurance under hardships; and incidents interesting from their rarity or their circumstances; but nothing different from other expeditions undertaken to explore the same region. A large part of the scientific matter is presented by itself. A curious account of the Indian races whose territories were travelled over forms a succession of separate chapters, and a series of elaborate papers on the physical geography of northern America occupies an appendix, which fills nearly two-thirds of the second volume. The nature of the country explored gives a freshness to every thing connected with it, and interest even to casual observation.

This is a curious fact connected with the feeling of heat:

"The power of the sun this day in a cloudless sky was so great, that Mr. Rae and I were glad to take shelter in the water while the crews were engaged on the portages. The irritability of the human frame is either greater in these Northern latitudes, or the sun, notwithstanding its obliquity, acts more powerfully upon it than near the Equator; for I have never felt its direct rays so oppressive within the Tropics as I have experienced them to be on some occasions in the high latitudes. The luxury of bathing at such times is not without alloy; for, if you choose the mid-day, you are assailed in the water by the tabani, who draw blood in an instant with their formidable lancets; and if you select the morning or evening, then clouds of thirsty moschetoes, hovering around, fasten on the first part that emerges. Leeches also infest the still waters, and are prompt in their aggressions."

The following relate to cold and mid-winter:

"The rapid evaporation of both snow and ice in the winter and spring, long before the action of the sun has produced the slightest thaw or appearance of moisture, is made evident to residents in the high latitudes by many facts of daily occurrence; and I may mention that the drying of linen furnishes a familiar one. When a shirt, after being washed, is exposed in the open air to a temperature of 40° or 50° below zero, it is instantly rigidly frozen, and may be broken if violently bent. If agitated when in this condition by a strong wind, it makes a rustling noise like theatrical thunder. In an hour or two, however, or nearly as quickly as it would do if exposed to the sun in the moist climate of England, it dries and becomes limber....

"In consequence of the extreme dryness of the atmosphere in winter, most articles of English manufacture made of wood, horn, or ivory, brought to Rupert's Land, are shrivelled, bent, and broken. The handles of razors and knives, combs, ivory scales, and various other things kept in the warm rooms, are damaged in this way. The human body also becomes visibly electric from the dryness of the skin. One cold night I rose from my bed, and having lighted a lantern, was going out to observe the thermometer, with no other clothing than my flannel night-dress, when, on approaching my hand to the iron latch of the door, a distinct spark was elicited. Friction of the skin at almost all times in winter produced the electric odor....

"Even at mid-winter we had three hours and a half of daylight. On the 20th of December I required a candle to write at the window at ten in the morning. On the 29th, the sun, after ten days' absence, rose at the fishery, where the horizon was open; and on the 8th of January, both limbs of that luminary were seen from a gentle eminence behind the fort, rising above the centre of Fishery Island. For several days previously, however, its place in the heavens at noon had been denoted by rays of light shooting into the sky above the woods. The lowest temperature in January was 50° F. On the 1st of February the sun rose to us at nine o'clock and set at three, and the days lengthened rapidly. On the 23d I could write in my room without artificial light from ten a.m. to half-past two p.m., making four hours and a half of bright daylight. The moon in the long nights was a most beautiful object; that satellite being constantly above the horizon for nearly a fortnight together in the middle of the lunar month. Venus also shone with a brilliancy which is never witnessed in a sky loaded with vapors; and, unless in snowy weather, our nights were always enlivened by the beams of the Aurora."

Few if any readers will ever be in a situation to use the knowledge of how to build a snow-house. The Arctic architecture, from a chapter on the Esquimaux, is worth reading, should it never turn out to be worth knowing:

"As the days lengthen, the villages are emptied of their inhabitants, who move seaward on the ice to the seal-hunt. Then comes into use a marvellous system of architecture, unknown among the rest of the American nations. The fine pure snow has by that time acquired, under the action of strong winds and hard frosts, sufficient coherence to form an admirable light building material, with which the Eskimo master-mason erects most comfortable dome-shaped houses. A circle is first traced on the smooth surface of the snow; and the slabs for raising the walls are cut from within, so as to clear a space down to the ice, which is to form the floor of the dwelling, and whose evenness was previously ascertained by probing. The slabs requisite to complete the dome, after the interior of the circle is exhausted, are cut from some neighboring spot. Each slab is neatly fitted to its place by running a flenching-knife along the joint, when it instantly freezes to the wall, the cold atmosphere forming a most excellent cement. Crevices are plugged up, and seams accurately closed by throwing a few shovelfuls of loose snow over the fabric. Two men generally work together in raising a house, and the one who is stationed within cuts a low door, and creeps out when his task is over. The walls being only three or four inches thick, are sufficiently translucent to admit a very agreeable light, which serves for ordinary domestic purposes; but if more be required a window is cut, and the aperture fitted with a piece of transparent ice. The proper thickness of the walls is of some importance. A few inches excludes the wind, yet keeps down the temperature so as to prevent dripping from the interior. The furniture—such as seats, tables, and sleeping-places—is also formed of snow, and a covering of folded reindeer-skin or seal-skin renders them comfortable to the inmates. By means of ante-chambers and porches, in form of long, low galleries, with their openings turned to leeward, warmth is insured in the interior; and social intercourse is promoted by building the houses contiguously, and cutting doors of communication between them, or by erecting covered passages. Storehouses, kitchens and other accessory buildings, may be constructed in the same manner, and a degree of convenience gained which would be attempted in vain with a less plastic material. These houses are durable, the wind has little effect on them, and they resist the thaw until the sun acquires very considerable power."

The following account of the formation of dry land is from an earlier portion of the journey, and refers to a region between the 50th and 55th degrees of latitude:

"The eastern coast-line of Lake Winipeg is in general swampy, with granite knolls rising through the soil, but not to such a height as to render the scenery hilly. The pine forest skirts the shore at the distance of two or three miles, covering gently-rising lands; and the breadth of continuous lake-surface seems to be in process of diminution, in the following way. A bank of sand is first drifted up, in the line of a chain of rocks which may happen to lie across the mouth of an inlet or deep bay. Carices, balsam-poplars, and willows, speedily take root therein; and the basin which lies behind, cut off from the parent lake, is gradually converted into a marsh by the luxuriant growth of aquatic plants. The sweet gale next appears on its borders, and drift-wood, much of it rotten and comminuted, is thrown up on the exterior bank, together with some roots and stems of larger trees. The first spring storm covers these with sand, and in a few weeks the vigorous vegetation of a short but active summer binds the whole together by a network of the roots of bents and willows. Quantities of drift-sand pass before the high winds into the swamp behind, and, weighing down the flags and willow branches, prepare a fit soil for succeeding crops. During the winter of this climate, all remains fixed as the summer left it; and as the next season is far advanced before the bank thaws, little of it washes back into the water, but on the contrary, every gale blowing from the lake brings a fresh supply of sand from the shoals which are continually forming along the shore. The floods raised by melting snows cut narrow channels through the frozen beach, by which the ponds behind are drained of their superfluous waters. As the soil gradually acquires depth, the balsam-poplars and aspens overpower the willows; which, however, continue to form a line of demarcation between the lake and the encroaching forest. Considerable sheets of water, are also cut off on the northwest side of the lake, where the bird's-eye limestone forms the whole of the coast. Very recently this corner was deeply indented by narrow branching bays, whose outer points were limestone cliffs. Under the action of frost, the thin horizontal beds of this stone split up, crevices are formed perpendicularly, large blocks are detached, and the cliff is rapidly overthrown, soon becoming masked by its own ruins. In a season or two the slabs break into small fragments, which are tossed up by the waves across the neck of the bay into the form of narrow ridgelike beaches, from twenty to thirty feet high. Mud and vegetable matter gradually fill up the pieces of water thus secluded; a willow swamp is formed; and when the ground is somewhat consolidated, the willows are replaced by aspens."

The volumes have all the value of an official survey, and they are the most important contributions to our knowledge of the Terra Incognita of the Lower Mackenzie, that have been published. The occupants of this region are the Loucheux Indians. Fine grown men of considerable stature, and well-knit frames, they have evidently followed the course of the Mackenzie River, from south to north. These are the Indians of whom from the scantiness of our previous data, information is most valuable. They are reasonably considered to belong to the same family as the Dog-rib, Beaver, Hare, Copper, Carrier, and other Indians, a family which some call Chepewyan, others Athabascan, but which the present work designates as Tinnè. The Esquimo and Crees, though as fully described, are better known. The chapters, illustrative of the other branches of the natural history of North America, are equally valuable.