324 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



mouth of the Yenisei, that the Jeannette had 

 met with disaster off the shore of Asia. His 

 conjecture was that De Long had skirted the 

 ice-fields to the westward until he had made 

 up his mind to make a dush for the pole 

 through the first favorahle opening rather than 

 continue on to Franz-Josef Land, where it 

 had already been attempted. Before the Jean- 

 nette sailed from America, De Long had an- 

 nounced his intention of retreating to the Si- 

 berian settlements in case of shipwreck. 



The expedition under Lieutenant Berry was 

 sent out after the Jeannette and the missing 

 whalers by the Government. An appropria- 

 tion of $175,000 was voted by Congress for the 

 purpose. The steam-whaler Mary and Helen 

 was purchased for $100,000. She was re- 

 vamped and fortified at a considerable expense. 

 Among the provisions was a large supply of 

 pemmican, but no spirits except for medicinal 

 use. Under the new name of the Rodgers the 

 ship put to sea June 16th. The commanding 

 officer, Robert M. Berry, lieutenant in the navy, 

 is an experienced Arctic voyager who served 

 on the Tigress expedition. The first officer 

 and navigator was H. S. Waring; the second 

 officer, Charles F. Putnam. Other members 

 of the expedition were Stoney Hunt, Engineer 

 A. V. Jane, Paymaster W. H. Gilder, and 

 Naval Surgeons J. D. Castillo and M. D. Jones. 

 The crew numbered twenty-six men. The ves- 

 sel stopped at Petropaulovsk to take on board 

 arctic clothing, dogs, and sledges. According 

 to their instructions, they first made inquiries 

 along the Siberian shore from East Cape to 

 Koliutchin Bay, and then sailed for Wrangel 

 Land. They were directed to winter on the 

 southern coast of Wrangel Land, or, if unable 

 to make a landing, among the Tchuktches of 

 Siberia. The instructions were to search par- 

 ticularly along the southern and eastern coast 

 of Wrangel Land, and on Herald Island, for the 

 cairns which De Long had announced that he 

 would leave, or other traces of the Jeannette, 

 and the following season to continue the search 

 along the northern shore of Siberia, and then 

 return home. Lieutenant Berry was the first 

 e-xplorer who ever made a landing on Wrangel 

 Land. He established the fact that it is only 

 a small island instead of the southern point 

 of a vast circumpolar continent, as has been 

 supposed by geographers. 



Wrangel Land was again visited and more 

 thoroughly explored the same season by the 

 officers of the Corwin, who came on the same 

 mission which brought Lieutenant Berry. The 

 revenue cutter Corwin is a steamer of 227 tons 

 burden, and capable of a speed of eleven knots 

 an hour. The commander was Captain Hooper, 

 who had with him five officers, three machin- 

 ists, the surgeon, Dr. Rosse, and thirty men. 

 A naturalist, Muir, of San Francisco, accom- 

 panied the expedition, and another, Nelson, 

 joined the expedition at St. Michaels. The 

 Corwin succeeded in effecting a landing on 

 Wrangel Land, in August. 



This hilly Arctic land is constantly encom- 

 passed by a fringe of impenetrable ice which 

 has defied all the efforts of former voyagers to 

 approach the shore. The government steamer 

 did not effect a landing until she had cruised 

 along the coast for several days, and then only 

 by cutting her way between the ice-blocks for 

 eight or ten miles. They struck the coast at 

 the mouth of a broad and deep river. No 

 snow remained except some patches upon the 

 mountains. The country was desolate and de- 

 void of life. Polar bears had left many tracks 

 on the beach, but no animals were seen except 

 a few birds. A fox-track was observed, and 

 the burrows of a species of marmot. There 

 were no signs of reindeer or musk-oxen, al- 

 though there was abundant food for them. 

 There was a scanty growth of mosses, lichens, 

 and angiosperms. About twenty species of 

 plants were counted, most of them in bloom. 

 They are similar to those of the neighboring 

 coasts of Siberia and Alaska. Coal was found, 

 and appears to be present in abundance. The 

 soil is a mixture of sand and clay. The rock 

 is slate and granite, and contains quartz which 

 has the appearance of holding a high percent- 

 age of gold. 



Whalers in the Arctic Ocean have been 

 caught in a strong current setting to the north- 

 east from Behring Strait. On the chance of 

 the Jeannette having been carried by this cur- 

 rent to the North American Archipelago, the 

 Arctic colonists on Lady Franklin Bay were 

 ordered to search the shores of the islands in 

 the vicinity of their settlement. In case there 

 is an open passage north of Greenland, the 

 missing cruiser might have drifted on this cur- 

 rent into the North Atlantic, and have been 

 cast ashore on the northern coast of Spitz- 

 bergen or the eastern coast of Greenland. On 

 this contingency the naval steamer Alliance 

 was dispatched under Captain Wadleigh to ex- 

 amine those coasts for traces of the Jeannette. 

 Provisions in plenty, and a number of whalers 

 and several boats were taken along for safety 

 in case the ship was caught in the ice-pack east 

 of Greenland. The Alliance had a scientific 

 mission to perform, as well as the duty of seek- 

 ing the Jeannette. The officers were instruct- 

 ed to carefully determine the limits of the ice- 

 fields between Greenland and Spitzbergen, to 

 record the temperature of the ocean at the sur- 

 face and at the depth of five fathoms, to take 

 observations of the specific gravity of the wa- 

 ter at the depth of ten fathoms, and of the rise 

 of the tides on the coasts of Spitzbergen. The 

 steamer sailed June 16th, and put in during a 

 storm at Reikiavik, Iceland, July 9th. They 

 learned that the winter there had been the 

 severest one recorded since 1610. The Arctic 

 ice still approached to within thirty miles of 

 the north coast. Reports of the extreme rigor 

 of the winter of 1880-'81 from other parts of 

 the Arctic regions increased the general anx- 

 iety as to the fate of the Jeannette's party. 

 In parts of the coast of Hudson Bay the cold 



