140 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 



officers of steamer Miranda, in case the steamer shall founder or 

 have to be abandoned ; and it is agreed that the recompense for 

 such accompanying the steamer shall be settled by arbitration, or by 

 mutual agreement between the agents of schooner Rigel and the 

 underwriters of said steamer Miranda at the port of New York. 

 W. J. Farrell, Master SS. Miranda. 

 Geo. W. Dixon, Master Schooner Rigel. 

 Geo. Manuel, Chief Officer SS. Miranda. 

 Witness : 



G. S, BiSTRUP, Governor. 



G. Baumann, Governor's Assistant. 



At Sukkertoppen I found things substantially as the letter 

 had stated. The steamer Miranda was an iron ship of be- 

 tween eleven and twelve hundred tons. She had struck a 

 sunken rock off Sukkertoppen, and had evidently stove a 

 large hole in her bottom, in a position where it let the water 

 into the tank that was constructed to carry water- ballast, and 

 the tank had almost immediately filled with water that forced 

 through the hole. Thus the whole strain of the bearings of 

 the ship upon the water was brought to bear upon the tank. 

 A survey had been held and the vessel pronounced not 

 safe to carry the crew or passengers. There were no means 

 to repair the damage on the coast of Greenland, and the sur- 

 vey had shown that it was advisable that the passengers be 

 transferred to some other vessel, and that some vessel should 

 be secured to accompany the vessel to some port of repair, for 

 if the tank should prove strong enough, the vessel would 

 probably go safe. 



In order to make room for the passengers, we took out 

 about fifty hundredweight of salt, which we gave to the 

 Eskimos, together with a lot of lumber and miscellaneous 

 other things, to the value of about $85 altogether, and thus 

 we obtained a space in the after-hold, on the salt, of about 

 fifteen feet in length and twenty feet in width, and four feet 

 in height. A door connected this with the cabin, and it was 



