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One of these parties, the “South line of Melville Island” party, was under a spirited young officer Mr. Mecham, who had tried such service in the last expedition. He had two of “her Majesty’s sledges,” “The Discovery” and “The Fearless,” a depot of twenty days’ provision to be used in the spring, and enough for twenty-five days’ present use. All the sledges had little flags, made by some young lady friends of Sir Edward Belcher’s. Mr. Mecham’s bore an armed hand and sword on a white ground, with the motto, “Per mare, per terram, per glaciem” Over mud, land, snow, and ice they carried their depot, and were nearly back, when, on the 12th of October, 1852, Mr. Mecham made the great discovery of the expedition.

On the shore of Melville Island, above Winter Harbor, is a great sandstone boulder, ten feet high, seven or eight broad, and twenty and more long, which is known to all those who have anything to do with those regions as “Parry’s sandstone,” for it stood near Parry’s observatory the winter he spent here, and Mr. Fisher, his surgeon, cut on a flat face of it this inscription:–

HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S
SHIPS HECLA AND GRIPER,
COMMANDED BY
W.E. PARRY AND MR. LIDDON,
WINTERED IN THE ADJACENT
HARBOR 1819-20.
A. FISHER, SCULPT.

It was a sort of God Terminus put up to mark the end of that expedition, as the Danish gentlemen tell us our Dighton rock is the last point of Thorfinn’s expedition to these parts. Nobody came to read Mr. Fisher’s inscription for thirty years and more,–a little Arctic hare took up her home under the great rock, and saw the face of man for the first time when, on the 5th of June, 1851, Mr. McClintock, on his first expedition this way, had stopped to see whether possibly any of Franklin’s men had ever visited it. He found no signs of them, had not so much time as Mr. Fisher for stone-cutting, but carved the figures 1851 on the stone, and left it and the hare. To this stone, on his way back to the “Resolute,” Mr. Mecham came again (as we said) on the 12th of October, one memorable Tuesday morning, having been bidden to leave a record there. He went on in advance of his party, meaning to cut 1852 on the stone. On top of it was a small cairn of stones built by Mr. McClintock the year before. Mecham examined this, and to his surprise a copper cylinder rolled out from under a spirit tin. “On opening it, I drew out a roll folded in a bladder, which, being frozen, broke and crumbled. From its dilapidated appearance, I thought at the moment it must be some record of Sir Edward Parry, and, fearing I might damage it, laid it down with the intention of lighting the fire to thaw it. My curiosity, however, overcame my prudence, and on opening it carefully with my knife, I came to a roll of cartridge paper with the impression fresh upon the seals. My astonishment may be conceived on finding it contained an account of the proceedings of H.M. ship ‘Investigator’ since parting company with the “Herald” [Captain Kellett’s old ship] in August, 1850, in Behring’s Straits. Also a chart which disclosed to view not only the long-sought Northwest Passage, but the completion of the survey of Banks and Wollaston lands. Opened and indorsed Commander McClintock’s despatch; found it contained the following additions:–

“‘Opened and copied by his old friend and messmate upon this date,
April 28, 1852. ROBERT McCLURE

“‘Party all well and return to Investigator to-day.'”

A great discovery indeed to flash across one in a minute. The “Investigator” had not been heard from for more than two years. Here was news of her not yet six months old. The Northwest Passage had been dreamed of for three centuries and more. Here was news of its discovery,–news that had been known to Captain McClure for two years. McClure and McClintock were lieutenants together in the “Enterprise” when she was sent after Sir John Franklin in 1848, and wintered together at Port Leopold the next winter. Now, from different hemispheres, they had come so near meeting at this old block of sandstone. Mr. Mecham bade his mate build a new cairn, to put the record of the story in, and hurried on to the “Resolute” with his great news,–news of almost everybody but Sir John Franklin. Strangely enough, the other expedition, Captain Collinson’s, had had a party in that neighborhood, between the other two, under Mr. Parks; but it was his extreme point possible, and he could not reach the Sandstone, though he saw the ruts of McClure’s sleigh. This was not known till long afterwards.