21 ' THE JEANNETTE ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



All before us now is uncertainty, because our movements 

 will be governed by circumstances over which we can have 

 no control. If, as I telegraphed, the search for Nordenskiold 

 is now needless, we will try and reach Wrangel Land, and 

 iind a winter harbor on that new land, on which, we believe, 

 the white man has not yet put his foot. At the worst, we 

 may winter in Siberia, and ' go for ' the Wrangel Land mys- 

 tery next spring. I am in great hopes we will reach there 

 this season. 



" We are amply supplied with fur clothing and provisions, 

 so that we can feed and keep warm in any event for some 

 time. Our dogs will enable us to make explorations to con- 

 siderable distances from the ship and determine the charac- 

 ter of the country. Feeling that we have the sympathy of 

 all we left at home, we go north, trusting in God's protection 

 and our good fortune. Farewell." 



After rounding East Cape, Lieutenant DeLong touched at 

 Cape Serdze, on the northeast coast of Siberia, and left his 

 last letter home. It was dated August 29th, and reached 

 Mrs. DeLong over a year afterward. In this letter he ex- 

 pressed his intention of proceeding to the southern end of 

 \Vrangel Land, touching on the way, if practicable, at Kol- 

 yutschin Bay, where the natives informed him Nordenskiold 

 had wintered. " If," he wrote (referring to the probability 

 that a ship would be sent to obtain intelligence of him the 

 following year), "the ship comes up merely for tidings of us, 

 let her look for them on the east side of Kellet Land and on 

 Herald Island." 



On the 2d of September, 1879, when about fifty miles or 

 so south of Herald Island, Captain Barnes, of the American 

 whale-bark Sea Breeze, saw the Jeannette under full sail 

 and steam, and attempted to communicate with her, but both 

 vessels were in heavy ice, and a dense fog was setting in, 

 which prevailed up to the following day. These vessels, 

 having approached to within less than four miles of each 

 other, held their courses without communication. On the 



