The key detail in Gore’s entry is what it records about the expedition’s position and history: the ships had completed the first winter without serious incident, had explored significant additional Arctic territory, and were in a position consistent with eventual completion of the Northwest Passage. The tone — “All well” — was not necessarily a full accounting of the expedition’s health and circumstances. Standard expedition updates of this kind were intended to inform rather than alarm, and “All well” may have reflected the official assessment of the situation rather than a comprehensive health report.
Fitzjames’s April 1848 addition crowded into the margins because there was no fresh paper available, and perhaps because using a form already deposited in an established cairn was more reliable than trying to establish a new one. The specific choice to add to rather than replace the existing form reflects a practical calculation: a search party finding the cairn would find the note, and the note now contained the most important information — that the ships had been abandoned and that the survivors were heading south.
The handwriting in the two entries is different. This is consistent with the fact that Gore wrote the first entry and Fitzjames wrote the second; it also illustrates the range of physical conditions under which the note was produced. Gore wrote in the spring of 1847, when the expedition was still intact and before the worst losses had occurred. Fitzjames wrote in April 1848, when Franklin and twenty-four other men were dead and the remaining 105 were preparing to abandon the ships.