334 HORRORS OF THE "JEANNETTE" EXPEDITION 



fifteen or twenty miles away. They christened it Henrietta Island, 

 the first seen having been named Jeannette Island. The journey 

 proved a severe and dangerous one, but it was a welcome break in 

 their monotonous life. DeLong wrote of it: "Thank God, we 

 have at last landed upon a newly-discovered part of this earth, and 

 a perilous journey (Melville's) has been accomplished without dis- 

 aster. It was a great risk, but it has resulted in some advantage/' 



The discovery of these islands, in about latitude 77 degrees 

 north, longitude 158 degrees east, was but a passing moment of 

 cheer in their life, the prelude to disasters far greater than they 

 had yet experienced, a momentary ringing up of the curtain upon 

 a scene of life to let it descend upon a scene of death. The time 

 was at hand for the ship to be released from her two winters of 

 imprisonment and to enter upon an imprisonment more hopeless 

 still, that of the ocean depths. Scarcely had the excursionists re- 

 turned from the new-named islands when the ice around the ship 

 began to break up into huge masses, leads opening and closing with 

 force enough to grind her to powder had she not still remained in 

 the center of a small island of ice. This protected her sides, but 

 her bottom was continually hammered by ice cakes floating below. 



On Sunday, June I2th, at midnight, the floe in which she lay 

 split in a line with her keel, and she suddenly righted, the concus- 

 sion sending all hands in alarm to the deck. As the day went on 

 the ice began pressing upon her sides, and at 3.40 P. M. it was 

 reported as having broken through into the starboard coal bunkers. 

 She was keeled over more than 20 degrees to starboard. At four 

 o'clock she lay perfectly quiet, but with her bows lifted high into 

 the air, sufficiently to show the injury to her forefoot made on 

 January 9, 1880. It was evident that she was hopelessly wounded 

 and that no effort could keep her afloat when the ice left her free. 



Mr. Melville went on the floe to take a final photograph of the 

 hapless "Jeannette," and on his return heard the order given to 

 prepare to leave the vessel by taking chronometers, rifles, ammu- 

 nition and other articles to the floe. Lieutenant Chipp was sick in 



