334 



GEOGEAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



advanced a few days farther in the tnndra des- 

 ert they had eaten their last meat, and pro- 

 longed their failing vitality on an allowance 

 of three ounces of alcohol per man per day. 

 Erickson, whose feet were frozen, died on the 

 Tth. The captain chose Ninderman and Noros 

 to advance by forced marches to Kumak Surka 

 and seek succor from the natives. They set 

 out on the 9th of October. In a starving con- 



GEOEGE M. MELVILLE, CHIEF ENGINEEB, XT. 8. 



dition they were found by a party of Tungus 

 on the 19th in the huts at Bulkur, twenty-five 

 miles north of Kumak Surka. After journey- 

 ing one hundred and twenty miles without 

 food they had only reached the locality where 

 Captain De Long supposed that he was when 

 they started. The natives fed and tended the 

 exhausted sailors, but either did not under- 

 stand them or were unwilling to go with them 

 to the relief of their shipmates. They were 

 taken to Kumak Surka, where they saw the 

 Russian exile who acted as Melville's messen- 

 ger, and then to Bulun. 



At the time when the Tungus rescued 

 Noros and Ninderman from starvation in the 

 huts of Bulkur, nearly all of their comrades 

 had already breathed their last. De Long 

 kept a journal to the last day of his life. On 

 the 30th of October he and Dr. Ambler, with 

 the Chinaman Ah Sam, were the only sur- 

 vivors, and on that day they also succumbed 

 to their privations. In the spring Melville ex- 

 plored the delta thoroughly for traces of De 

 Long's and Chipp's parties. At the end of 

 March De Long and his eleven companions 

 were found as corpses. They had consumed 

 their boots and their skin-clothing to stay the 

 pangs of hunger. 



The Eira, Leigh Smith's stanch Arctic cruis- 



er, in which the year before he had recon- 

 noitred a long stretch of unknown coast in 

 Franz Josef Land, set out in June, 1881, to 

 continue the explorations and incidentally to 

 aid in the search for the Jeannette. As noth- 

 ing was heard from Mr. Smith and his party 

 from the time they disappeared in the north 

 until August, 1882, they were almost given up 

 for lost. The Eira was provisioned for a year, 

 but not equipped for winter. The 

 last seen of her was by a Norwegian 

 walrus-hunter off the southwest 

 coast of Nova Zembla. She was 

 headed off by the ice-pack and was 

 waiting for the ice to open. In the 

 summer of 1882 a whaling-vessel, 

 the Hope, was fitted out and sent 

 in search of her, under the com- 

 mand of Sir Allen Young. After 

 waiting for an opening in the ice 

 several weeks, the Eira reached 

 Franz Josef Land August Tth and 

 steamed along the coast to within 

 fifteen miles of Cape Ludlow, and 

 then returned to Bell Island, having 

 been headed off by the ice. Being 

 unable to pass to the eastward of 

 Barents Hook, they made fast to a 

 land-floe off Cape Flora, where the 

 vessel was nipped in the ice and 

 sunk on August 21, 1881. A por- 

 tion of the provisions were got out 

 before she went down. Walrus 

 and bear meat was obtained often 

 enough to keep the officers and 

 crew from starvation. A hut which 

 they built of turf and stones shel- 

 tered them during the winter. On June 21, 

 1882, the twenty-five men started for Nova 

 Zembla in four boats. They carried provisions 

 which they had prepared, sufficient for two 

 months. After sailing eighty miles, they were 

 stopped by the ice. In six weeks water was 

 reached again. A gale drove them on their 

 way, and they landed at Matochin Straits with- 

 in twenty-four hours. The "William Barents 

 was spoken the next morning, and from her 

 they learned that the Hope was anchored in a 

 neighboring bay. Sir Allen Young returned 

 with the shipwrecked crew as soon as possible, 

 reaching Aberdeen on the anniversary of the 

 day when the Eira went down. In the cruise 

 of the Eira in 1880 Leigh Smith reached Franz 

 Josef Land at the small island called May 

 Island to the west of Cape Tegethoff and south 

 of Hooker Island. He passed in a southwest- 

 erly course around Barents Cape and discov- 

 ered a new land which he named Northbrook 

 Island, and its extremity Cape Flora. Beyond 

 here he found a haven between Bell and Ma- 

 bel Islands, which was named Eira Harbor. 

 From here he passed around Cape Grant and 

 followed the coast of the mainland as far as a 

 point which was called Cape Neale, where he 

 was stopped by the ice-pack. He could see 

 from here the land for a long distance trend- 



