THE COMMANDER OF THE EXPEDITION. 13 



tenant De Long at once volunteered to take command 

 of the search party. Captain Braine accepted him and 

 gave him orders for the expedition. These orders, and 

 an extract from the report which Lieutenant De Long 

 made upon his return, will best describe the search, 

 and the report will show more clearly than any com- 

 ment upon it the courage, resolution, and coolness of 

 the commander of the perilous boat expedition : — 



U. S. Steamer Juniata (3d rate). 



Upernavik, Greenland, July 31, 1873. 



Lieutenant George W. De Long, U. S. N., 

 Commanding the Steam-Launch Juniata. 



Sm, — The Little Juniata, the largest steani-launcli of this 

 ship, has been carefully strengthened with outer planking, also 

 with an iron stem plate, and her propeller guarded with an 

 iron frame. She is thoroughly equipped, arranged, and pro- 

 visioned for sixty days, under your supervision, for a search 

 for the U. S. Steamer Polaris, along the fast inshore ice to the 

 northward of this place towards Melville Bay. 



You will assume command of her, and at the first appro- 

 priate moment proceed to carry out said search as far as it is 

 positively prudent to advance to the northward. 



In navigating these northerly and almost unknown waters, 

 much must be left to your discretion, and your movements 

 must be controlled by the sliort time the U. S. Steamer Juni- 

 ata will remain at Upernavik, which is until August 25, 1873. 



You are enjoined to advise with the ice-pilot furnished you, 

 who has twice passed over the waters you are about to navi- 

 gate and wintered in the frozen Arctic regions. 



The Little Juniata is not to be jeopardized or pushed into 

 the ice-packs, if you meet them ; nor is she, or the lives of 

 those on board, to be involved in any way it is possible to 

 avoid ; for you must remember that the U. S. Steamer Tigress, 

 a vessel equipped and prepared for ice cruising, will soon pro- 

 ceed to Baffin's Bay into Smith's Straits, to search for the 

 Polaris, up to the point where she wa3 last seen (Northum- 

 berland Island) in October, 1872, and you are reconnoitring, 



