CHAPTER III 
THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE AND THE 
FRANKLIN SEARCH 
As related in Chapter I, the efforts to discover 
a passage to Cathay via the arctic seas ended with 
the voyage of Baffin in 1616. It is significant of 
the modern spirit of adventure that the Northwest 
Passage should be sought again in the eighteenth 
century, and be discovered in the nineteenth cen- 
tury by a remarkable series of voyages, which 
brought to man’s knowledge the existence of Arctic 
America. 
In the middle of the eighteenth century, it 
became known that the last voyage of Bering 
(made in 1741) disclosed that the continents of 
America and Asia were separated by a strait, as 
related in Chapter IV. This discovery excited 
anew the activities of Great Britain in quest of the 
forgotten arctic route from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. The attempt to circumnavigate North 
America was entrusted to the great navigator, 
James Cook, who decided to attack the problem 
through Bering Strait. His selection of this route is 
doubtless explained, when, speaking of Bering’s voy- 
ages, he said, “His misfortunes proved to be the 
source of much private advantage to individuals, 
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