&22 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



THE DEAD. 



AFTER removing the survivors, the rescuing party turned their 

 attention to recovering the dead bodies, which lay under the 

 snow and ice, some in marked and others in unmarked graves. 

 Twelve of the victims were dug out of their ice-beds and carried 

 to the Thetis, where they were dressed in becoming winding 

 sheets, preparatory to bringing them back to the green hills of 

 their birth for honored burial. 



The Alert had become separated from her companion vessels 

 in a gale, and was not, therefore, present at the recovery, but the 

 three were again united, on the return journey, off Wilcox Head. 

 Upon arriving at Upernavik, July 2d, Commander Schley dis- 

 patched the Alert and her tender, the Loch Garry, to Godhaven, 

 while the Bear and Thetis remained, the former to coal and the 

 latter to shift her broken rudder. At Godhaven the Alert re- 

 paired aome of her broken machinery, and buried one of the Es- 

 quimaux who had accompanied Greely. The vessels started south 

 together on the 10th of July, but on the 15th, when off the coast 

 of Newfoundland, the steel barrier which bound the Alert and 

 Loch Garry together, parted three times in a gale, and the 

 former had to finally be cast adrift. 



July 17th the Bear and Thetis dropped anchor off St. John's 

 at 9, A. M., and Commander Schley immediately telegraphed 

 Secretary Chandler the results of his successful search as here 

 given, and also the following further particulars of his voyage : 



"The channel between Cape Sabine and Littleton Island did 

 not close, on account of violent gales, all winter, so that 240 

 rations at the latter point could not be reached. All of Greely's 

 records and all the instruments brought by him from Fort Con- 

 ger are recovered and are on board. From Hare Island to 

 Smith's Sound I had a constant and furious struggle with ice in 

 impassable floes. The solid barriers were overcome by watch- 

 fulness and patience. No opportunity to advance a mile escaped 

 me, and for several hundred miles the ships were forced to ram 

 their way from lead to lead, through ice varying in thickness 

 from three to six feet, and when rafted, much greater. 



