THE FROZEN NORTH. 135 



probably carried to the northeast by the immense 

 ice packs, which closed them round for ten miles, 

 and there perished. 



The loss of property through this fleet was 

 estimated at four hundred and forty-two thousand 

 dollars. 



It is, of course, first of human life and human 

 suffering that one thinks in connection with such 

 disasters as this, but there is something very 

 like tragedy in the penniless, dishevled, beaten, 

 bruised, scarcely-saved condition of these men, 

 whose sustenance, and, perhaps, that of wives 

 and children, depends upon the success of their 

 voyages. 



On November 5, 1871, there appeared at San 

 Francisco, from Honolulu and Australia, the 

 steamer Moses Taylor, reporting the loss of 

 thirty-three whalers, some of them crushed and 

 broken by bergs and floes, all of them abandoned 

 in the Arctic seas. No lives were lost, but the 

 estimated financial loss was one and a half million 

 dollars. Were one to follow the result of that 

 loss into individual lives, numberless tragedies 

 might be brought to light, many new dirges 

 of sorrow sounded. 



