50 THE JEANNETTE ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



voices alone broke the solitude. On a high cliff Lieutenant 

 Reynolds set up a pole of drift wood, to which was attached 

 an American flag, and a bottle containing a record of the visit. 

 The country was taken possession of in the name of the 

 United States of America, and rechristened New Columbia. 

 As the flag fluttered in the breeze a salute was fired from the 

 ship, and cheers were given by the crew and the land party. 



" The great distance to which slight sounds are sometimes 

 transmitted in the Arctic regions is remarkable. Amid the 

 grim silence of Wrangel Land, at a time when the air was 

 acoustically opaque for that latitude, the voice of the boat- 

 swain giving orders two miles away was distinctly heard by 

 the land party, while laughter and words spoken above the 

 ordinary tone were heard with such amazing distinctness as 

 to suggest telephonic communication." 



The river where the Corwin anchored was named Clark 

 River, in honor of Mr. E. W. Clark, the Chief of the Revenue 

 Marine. It was about one hundred yards wide, and deep 

 and rapid, and from the top of the cliffs near by it could be 

 seen extending back into the mountains a distance of forty 

 miles. The mountains, devoid of snow, and seen under very 

 favorable circumstances through a rift in the clouds, ap- 

 peared brown and naked. 



" Our stay on shore," says Captain Hooper, " was necessa- 

 rily short, on account of the strong northerly current which 

 was sweeping the ice-pack along with irresistible force. 

 At half-past nine A.M., being unable to hold our position any 

 longer, we commenced to work out toward the lead, which 

 we reached at eleven A.M. We examined the shore line with 

 our glasses while approaching and leaving the land, north 

 and south, and saw nothing but perpendicular cliffs of slate, 

 from one to three hundred feet high, the sloping banks of 

 the river being the only place for miles where a party travel- 

 ing over the ice would be able to affect a landing." 



Captain Hooper now sailed to the eastward, and on the 

 16th reached Point Barrow, where he found a portion of the 

 crew of the whaling-ship Daniel Webster, which had been 



