CHAPTER II. 



A SEARCH FOR MISSING WHALERS AND THE JEANNETTE. 



(CRUISE OF THE CORWIN, 1880.) 







IN the autumn of 1879, two whaling ships, the Mt. Wol- 

 laston, commanded by Captain Nye, and the Vigilant 

 which, with a score of others, left San Francisco in the 

 spring failed to return, and were reported as having been 

 seen entangled in the ice by Captain Bauldry, whose bark, 

 the Helen Mar, was the last to get away. Another vessel, 

 the Mercury, was also caught in the ice, and her crew were 

 rescued by the Helen Mar. 



Tempted by favorable weather and the hope of success in 

 catching whales, these vessels had prolonged their stay in 

 the Arctic Sea till after the middle of October, and Captain 

 Bauldry escaped with difficulty, forcing a passage through 

 the new ice which formed rapidly around him. A sudden 

 change of wind drove the missing whalers northwesterly 

 into open water, while a heavy body of ice south of them 

 prevented all escape. Their crews numbered about twenty 

 men each, and the desperate condition in which they were 

 placed may be inferred from the fact that during the eight 

 previous years no less than thirty-three vessels, out of the 

 small fleet there engaged in whaling, had been caught in the 

 pack and drifted to the northeast, carrying with them sixty 

 men who had remained by their ships in the vain hope of 

 saving them, and of whom nothing has since been heard. 

 Durjng the same period, over thirty other whalers of the 

 same fleet had also been crushed or otherwise wrecked. 



The following reminiscence of Captain Nye is furnished 

 by Mr. William Bradford, the eminent marine artist : 



(28) 



