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X.] AMERICAN SHIP IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. 353 



Already during the first days of our wintering we interpreted 

 various lively accounts of the natives, Avhich they illustrated by 

 signs, to mean that a whaler would be found at Serdze Kamen, 

 in the neighbourhood of the Vegas winter haven. On this 

 account Lieutenant Brusewitz was sent out on the 4th October 

 with two men and the little boat, Louise, built in Copenhagen 

 for the expedition of 1872-73, and intended for sledge-journeys, 

 with instructions to ascertain, if possible, if such was the case. 

 He returned late at night the same day without having got 

 sight of any vessel. We now supposed that the whole depended 

 on our having misunderstood the accounts of the Chukches. 

 But a letter which I received after our return, from Mr. W. 

 Bartlett, dated New Bedford, 6th January, 1880, shows that 

 this had not been the case. For he writes, among other 

 things : — 



" The writer's son, Gideon W. Bartlett, left San Francisco 

 1st June, 1878, in our freighter ship Syren, of 875 tons, for 

 St. Lawrence Bay, arriving there July 8th, and, after loading 

 6,100 barrels of oil and 37,000 lbs. of bone from our whalers, 

 she sailed for New Bedford direct, touching at Honolulu to 

 land her bone, to come here via San Francisco, and he joined 

 our whaler bark, JRaiiiboiv, at St.- Lawrence Bay, and went on 

 a tour of observation and pleasure, visiting Point Barrow and 

 going as far east as Lion Reefs, near Camden Bay, and then 

 returning to Point Barrow, and going over to Herald Island, 

 and while there visiting our different whalers, seeing one " bow- 

 head " caught and cut in, and September 25th he came down 

 in the schooner W. M. Meyer to San Francisco, arriving there 

 October 22nd. By a comparison of dates we find he passed 

 near Cape Serdze September 29th, or one day after you anchored 

 near Kolyutschin Bay." 



The 29th September according to the American day-reckoning 

 corresponds to the 30th according to that of the old world, which 

 was still followed on board the Vega. The schooner W. M. 

 Meyer thus lay at Serdze Kamen two days after we anchored in 

 our winter haven. The distance between the two places is only 

 about 70 kilometres. 



The winter haven was situated in 67° 4' 49" north latitude, 

 and 173° 23' 2" longitude west from Greenwich, 1*4 kilo- 

 metres from land. The distance from East Cape was 120', 

 and from Point Hope near Cape Lisburn on the American 

 side, 180'. 



The neighbouring land formed a plain rising gradually from 

 the sea, slightly undulating and crossed by river valleys, which 

 indeed when the Vega was frozen in was covered with hoarfrost 



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