Frozen in Time (23 page)
Further examination of the X-rays revealed some degenerative arthritic changes in the hands, possibly related to occupational stresses. The feet also showed arthritic changes, in particular, the big toes had a condition called
hallux rigidus.
These observations would be consistent with a man of Braine's age and occupation. In addition to arthritic changes, small bony projections, probably benign bone tumours
(osteochondromas),
were seen in the bones of the knees (on the tibias).
The autopsy took seven hours and was extremely comprehensive. Like Hartnell's, it was performed on the ground with the body resting on a sheet of white plastic. Written and recorded accounts were made during the whole period, and a thorough photographic record taken. Beattie assisted Amy during the autopsy, labelling storage containers and collecting tissue samples.
Unlike either Torrington or Hartnell, Braine was partially decomposed, demonstrating that some time had elapsed after William Braine's death before the burial actually took place. An explanation for this apparent delay is difficult to ï¬nd, though two possibilities were discussed. During the spring of 1846, parties were sent away from the ships to survey parts of nearby Devon Island. Franklin campsites had been discovered by searchers north of Beechey Island on the west coast of Devon Island and at Cape Riley. It is possible Braine had been with one of these parties when he died; after suffering a rapid decline in health in the manner of later sledge crews, some members of which became so ill that they had to be hauled back as passengers on the sledges they were meant to be pulling. There was even physical evidence to support this: The presence of ulcerations over the anterior surface of both shoulders indicated the likelihood of abrasion from sledge hauling. With two graves already located at Beechey Island, his body would have been returned for burial at the tiny cemetery. Wrapped and secured to a sledge he would have frozen within a few hours, though decomposition would have already set in. When the sledge party arrived at the ships, he may have been taken on board for examination by the doctors, followed by preparation for burial. During the time spent on ship, the rate of decay would have accelerated. Another possibility was related to poor weather. Braine may have died when the weather conditions did not allow his immediate burial. This seems a less reasonable explanation, as the body could easily have been placed in a cool or even freezing part of the ship, where the amount of observed decomposition would have been far less likely to occur. Whatever the reason, the decomposition was at least a possible explanation for Braine's body being placed quickly and without care in the coffin.
During this ï¬nal autopsy, Beattie wondered what Torrington, Hartnell and Braine would have thought about his research. The three men were explorers in their own time, either through conscription or by choice, involved in dangerous exploits that embodied the Victorian ideals of adventure, imperialism and self- sacriï¬ce. Now, at least in body, they had emerged from the ice to brieï¬y visit the 1980s. They could not have foretold such an odyssey.
With the autopsy and X-rays complete, a plane arrived on 20 June to pick up Amy, Notman, Anderson, Schweger and Spenceley. Those remaining on site wrapped Braine's body tightly in cotton and lowered it to Beattie and Savelle, who were standing in the grave. Gently, they laid the body in the coffin and positioned it carefully. Minutes before, Beattie had spread the shroud along the bottom of the coffin and, once the body had been placed on it, the left side of the shroud was brought over the body, followed by the right side, which was tucked underneath. The kerchief, undershirt, sweater, shirt and stockings, each wrapped in protective mylar, were then placed in the coffin and the lid lowered into position. The north side of the tent was pulled back, and the sun, low in the northern sky at 11 PM, illuminated the headboard and inside walls of the tent. Standing beside the grave, bathed in brilliant yellow sunlight, the team silently gave a moment of reï¬ection and respect to William Braine. Beattie then jumped into the grave, and a bucket of gravel was passed down to him. He slowly emptied the bucket over the plaque, spreading the gravel in a protective layer on its surface.
The ï¬lling of the grave began immediately. The huge pile of gravel, resting beside the grave, attested to the depth of the burial. Two people shovelled gravel into buckets while the others took turns carrying the buckets to the grave and pouring them in. Soon the gravel pile began to shrink, and within three hours the grave had been ï¬lled to a point where the large rocks could be repositioned on the surfaceâbut mental and physical exhaustion had taken hold, and this task would be completed the following day.
Several days were spent completing the restoration of the site, and, after dismantling their camp, the remaining researchers left in two groups: Beattie, Nungaq and Kowal on 24 June, with Carlson, Savelle and Damkjar following on 27 June.
Other than the Franklin search expeditions of the 1850s, no one else had spent so much time at the site where the crews of the
Erebus
and
Terror
had experienced their ï¬rst Arctic winter, and the early searchers had departed with many questions still unanswered. But Beattie left Beechey Island convinced that Petty Officer Torrington, Able Seaman Hartnell and Private Braine would provide some answers, for it seemed they had lived again for a few brief hours during the Arctic summers of 1984 and 1986.
The frozen tissue, hair and bone samples from both John Hartnell and William Braine were carried back to Edmonton in a small insulated cooler, and, within two days of leaving Beechey Island, were stored in a deep freeze at the University of Alberta Hospital. So much depended on this tiny box of samples. This was the evidence that would either conï¬rm or defeat Beattie's theory about the impact of lead on the Franklin expedition.
If trace element analysis of the samples revealed lead levels dramatically lower than had been obtained from Torrington and the Booth Point skeleton, then the source of lead exposure for those previously tested would have to be re-examined. The question would then be: Why only Torrington and not the others? But if elevated levels of lead were identiï¬ed during the testing of the remains of Hartnell and Braine, then a much more substantial argument could be made for the underlying impact that lead would have had on the expedition. Five years of research now hinged on the extraction and analysis of the information locked in the tissue samples.
Such analysis, however, takes careful planning, and, in the following months, while Kowal prepared to test the human samples, Beattie spent his time studying the ten tin cans collected at Beechey Island.
Again, there was no question that lead contamination from the solder would have been considerable, but, on closer examination, the tins also revealed something unexpected, something Beattie and Damkjar had overlooked while plotting and describing the artefacts on the island. The side seams of some of the tins were incomplete. In fact, it appeared as if the tinsmith who made them had failed to properly seal the end part of the seams. The signiï¬cance of this missed step in the manufacturing process cannot be overemphasized, as it would have resulted in spoilage of the food contained in the tins. It is, therefore, important to understand the design of the tins supplied to Franklin's expedition, both for the location of solder and the reason for the ï¬aws.
In 1845, tinned preserved food was still a relatively recent innovation, one that would have an immediate and major impact on maritime exploration. The tin container itself, patented in England in 1811, was immediately embraced by the British for use in its Royal Navy in most parts of the world. It was an invention that presumably would allow expeditions to winter successfully in the Arctic and make an assault on the Northwest Passage seem destined for success.
The ï¬rst containers were constructed from a tinned wrought-iron sheet bent round a cylindrical form, with the edges allowed to lap over one another. The tinsmith then placed his soldering iron on each formed seam (internal and external), where he ï¬oated a bead of solder along most of its length. The seams were left unsoldered at the top and bottom ends.
The top and bottom end pieces were then bent to form a ï¬ange. When the ends were placed on the cylinder body, the ï¬ange slid over either the outside or the inside of the cylinder, depending on the tin type. (The ï¬ange was the reason why the tinsmith did not solder the body lap-seams all the way to the top and bottom: the end pieces could be slipped onto the cylinder body without being blocked by seam solder.) However, when the ends were soldered on, the small gaps between the lap-seam and the ï¬ange were not always sealed with a drop of solder. The incomplete seam very likely resulted in the spoilage of some of the expedition's food supply, which supported the conclusions of some of the leading Franklin searchers.
The top end piece of each tin also had a ï¬ller hole that varied in size, depending on the size and type of canister. The top end piece was attached ï¬rst, then heavily soldered on the inside. The bottom end piece was then attached, and it too was soldered internally through the ï¬ller hole in the top end piece. Solder was then applied round the outside of the end seams.
Food was pushed through the ï¬ller hole and the tin then almost completely immersed in boiling water (sometimes containing calcium chloride to increase the cooking temperature.) When cooking was complete and while the food was still at temperature, the ï¬ller hole was covered by a cap, secured with solder. The tins, now completely sealed, formed a partial vacuum upon cooling. The next step was to paint the outside of the tins to protect them against damage and corrosion. (The solder itself was made up of more than 90 per cent lead, with the balance being tin. This high lead level produced a solder that had poor “wetting” characteristicsâin other words, it did not ï¬ow readily when in a liquid state. This meant it did not migrate easily into the spaces formed between two pieces of metal, as would solder with a higher tin content.)
The contract for the tinned preserved food was given to Stephan Goldner on 1 April 1845. On 5 May, the day Franklin received his sailing instructions, the superintendent of the Victualling Yard at Deptford reported that only one-tenth of the contract had been supplied. This was followed three days later by a promise from Goldner that by 12 May, all the meat would be delivered and the soups by 15 May, though he did ask for and receive permission to pack the soups in tins larger than in the original speciï¬cation. There is a good chance that in the rush to complete the order, quality control suffered and some food that would later spoil was included among the 8,000 tins supplied to the expedition. If a signiï¬cant proportion of the food went bad, it would have added a considerable burden to the expedition.
As Beattie continued his research into the problem tins, Roger Amy submitted the tissues collected under sterile conditions for bacteriological assessment. The preliminary results of this research identiï¬ed tuberculosis in the lung tissue of William Braine, though there had been no success in culturing the organism. However, bacteria collected from the bowel of William Braine (an uncommon form of the genus
Clostridium,
associated with the human bowel)
was
cultured. Remarkably, bacteria dating to 1846, and once part of William Braine, is still alive today.
Then, in early 1987, Walt Kowal and experts at the Alberta Workers' Health and Compensation laboratory in Edmonton began to test hair samples collected from Torrington in 1984 and Hartnell and Braine in 1986. Again, the method of testing involved the combustion at high temperatures of solutions made from samples of the hair. (The resulting emissions are characteristic of a particular element, such as lead, and can be identiï¬ed and quantiï¬ed.) The ï¬rst tests were run on hair collected from the crown and nape areas of Torrington's head. They revealed levels ranging from 413 to 657 parts per million (ppm), very similar to the extremely high levels previously identiï¬ed in hair samples taken from Torrington.
It wasn't until April that Kowal called Beattie with results of the ï¬rst tests on Hartnell and Braine: “Not a thing, didn't ï¬nd a thing. There's nothing in the other two,” Kowal said.
Beattie was quiet for a moment, then said: “Well, now it gets more complicated.” His mind was already at work trying to ï¬gure out this new twist. But Kowal, now laughing, quickly added: “Wait a minute, I was pulling your leg. The levels are high, there's no denying it.”
Hair from Hartnell had yielded lead levels ranging from 138 to 313 ppm, while hair from Braine was very similar at 145 to 280 ppm. Although not as high as the lead levels measured in Torrington, the results exceeded the contemporary hair standard by well over twenty times. Subsequent testing would eliminate the possibility of external twentieth-century contamination, and further tests on bone and tissue from Torrington, Hartnell and Braine underscored the accuracy of the hair results.
Furthermore, the fact that the information on lead exposure came from hair meant that the contamination occurred during Franklin's voyageânot from industrial pollution in the British environment of the day. Possible sources of lead exposure on the expedition were numerous, including tea wrapped in lead foil, pewterware and lead-glazed pottery vessels. But it was the reliance of Franklin's expedition on tinned food that was the root cause. It has since been calculated that each sailor would have been allotted about a pound (.25 kg) of tinned food every second day, resulting in regular and considerable ingestion of lead. And while there can be no exact explanation of the differences in the level of lead between Torrington on the one hand and Hartnell and Braine on the other, it is quite likely related to differences in the food consumed by the three men and their jobs aboard ship. For example, Torrington, as leading stoker, may have picked up added contamination from lead in coal dust.
What is very clear from the ï¬ndings, however, now based on more than four (including the Booth Point skeleton and other bones gathered on King William Island in 1982) separate individuals and using the facilities of a series of different labs, is that lead played an important role in the declining health of the entire crews of the
Erebus
and
Terror
ânot only in their loss of physical energy but increasingly in their minds' despair. Loss of appetite, fatigue, weakness and colic are some of the physical symptoms of lead poisoning; it can also cause disturbances of the central and peripheral nervous systems, producing neurotic and erratic behaviour and paralysis of the limbs. But it is the effects on the mind that may have been of greatest importance in isolating the impact of lead on the expedition. Under the continuing and prolonged stressful conditions of long periods in the Arctic, even very subtle effects of low lead exposure could have had signiï¬cant impact on the decision-making abilities of the men, particularly the officers. Only clear minds can hope to make correct decisions.
There is no single reason why the expedition failed, of course; it was a deadly combination of factors. That is why there is no one answer to the question of what caused the Franklin expedition disaster. Perhaps the best that can be done today is to isolate the reasonable possibilities and ï¬t them into the broad circumstances as identiï¬ed from the scattered remains found at archaeological sites. This is what Beattie was able to do.
In some cases, such as the three sailors from Beechey Island, the effects of lead poisoning were catastrophic. Amy's autopsy results showed that, like Torrington, both Hartnell and Braine suffered from tuberculosis and died of pneumonia. In addition, radiological evidence obtained by Derek Notman identiï¬ed a collapsed eleventh thoracic vertebra in William Braine, a condition caused by Pott's disease, which in turn is usually caused by tubercular infection. But it was the insidious and poorly understood poison, lead, entering their bodies at high levels over the course of the ï¬rst months of the expedition, that weakened these three young men to the point that they were easily killed off by supervening diseases. Other crewmen would have been as severely affected by the poisoning, which probably explains at least some of the other twenty-one deaths experienced by the expedition in the early period before the ships were deserted on 22 April 1848.
As for the high ratio of officer deaths prior to the death march (nine out of twenty-one), Beattie found possible explanations consistent with the lead ï¬ndings. If the officers, a rigidly separated and very aloof class, even during long and conï¬ned expeditions, were using their pewter tableware and eating a preferential food source (that is, proportionately more tinned food), they may have ingested much higher levels of lead than the other seamen. It is at least possible that Sir John Franklin himself died directly or indirectly from the effects of lead poisoning.
As for those men who died during the tragic death march in the spring and summer of 1848, some may have exhibited classic symptoms of the poisoning, such as anorexia, weakness and fatigue and paranoia, which would have compounded the effects of starvation and scurvy. Other crewmen may not have shown any obvious effects of the poison, perhaps because of differing diets and physical responses to the lead.
It is sadly ironic that Franklin's expedition, certainly one of the greatest seafaring expeditions ever launched, carrying all the tools that early industry and innovation could offer, should have been mortally wounded by one of them. Yet Beattie now believed he had the scientiï¬c evidence to say that this was the case.