A piece of pork rib, possibly from salted pork rations, from the 1845 British Northwest Passage Expedition led by Sir John Franklin. This pork rib bone has a flared end where it joined another bone.

The pork rib bone was one of three pieces found by Lieutenant William R. Hobson's sledge team on 3 May 1859 at an abandoned camp site at Cape Felix, King William Island, as part of the search expedition led by Captain F. L. McClintock. Hobson recorded '...some salt meat bones,...'' [Stenton, 'Arctic' v.69, No. 4, p. 514]. McClintock recorded them as 'two small rib bones, probably out of salt pork' [McClintock, 'Voyage of the Fox' (1860), p.368]. The camp site was occupied by about twelve officers and men from the Franklin expedition during the summer of 1847, living in three small tents. They were probably engaged in surveying, scientific work or hunting while the expeditions ships remained trapped in the ice. The site was apparently abandoned in a hurry - Hobson found the tents flattened with blankets and bear skins underneath. He concluded that, as the party had left behind so much of their equipment, they had probably gone back to the ships.

The bone was displayed at the Royal Naval Museum, Greenwich, in Case 2, No. 102 'Bones of salt pork'. The item is also shown in 'Stereoscopic slides of the relics of Sir John Franklin's Expedition' photographed by Lieutenant Cheyne RN, at the United Services Museum, Whitehall, No. 11 (top left).