Bones of contention |
As recounted in Nourse (p. 400), it was just a few days earlier that he had, while searching unsuccessfully for the bodies reported to be on the Todd Islets, that he encountered an Inuk by the name of "Koo-nik," who gave him a number of items taken from the wrecked at "Ook-joo-lik"(which we now know to be HMS Erebus); he gave Hall
"a silver spoon ... and a second smaller mahogany box, with another spoon and many other articles, including pieces of copper with two stamps of a broad arrow, and a steel spear-head on which was stamped " THE SHIP." All these had been brought from one of Franklin's ships and from the shore on the south side of Ook-joo-lik (O'Reilly Island). Knives, needles, thimbles, beads, and rings were
given in return."
Detail of Edmond Le Feuvre's letter |
I quite agree with you that the fact of there being a little spec of gold in one tooth is no evidence that the remains are those of an officer, and I quite think the right thing has been done in them being deposited at Greenwich. I confess I wish they had been deposited in consecrated ground but they will be preserved quite sacredly when they are in front of the monument erected to the memory of the Expedition, and I suspect our church laws would not have permitted a burial service to have been performed in the absence of all proof of identity.Edmond also mentions that he had called upon Sophia Cracroft, Lady Franklin's niece and companion, and that she apparently was convinced by Huxley's account, and by "the photograph of the pencil drawing" -- this must mean that a photographic copy of the sketch made in New York had been provided to her! -- but then muddles things by saying "this could not in any way be relied on being simply a copy of the daguerreotype likeness." Here, Edmond is in error -- having seen the sketch we know it's based on the skull -- but this gives us the wonderful vision of Sophy sitting at home, comparing the photograph of the sketch with her own copy of the Daguerreotype of Le Vesconte!
And, although in some ways for wrong reasons such as this, the skeptics were to be proven right -- although not for more than a century and a half. The proof will be the subject of the next (and for now final) chapter of this story.
I love reading this smaller mysteries unfold within the larger mystery of the expedition itself. Fascinating reading, and thank you so much for compiling this!
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