76 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



In a few days we were back among the eastern ships, and on the 17th of the month learned that 

 the Three Brothers had been abandoned in the ice around Point Barrow, and that the ships that 

 brought down her crew barely escaped the double danger of being inclosed by the ice and of being 

 frozen in. We had now northeast wind, quite cold, and snowy. A few nights after the W. A. 

 Farnsworth was lost, her crew barely having time to escape as they stood. 



" At this time there was more young ice than I have ever before seen in the Arctic. On the 

 20th of September, in latitude 70 20', the whole ocean appeared to be frozen over, the young ice 

 being nearly an inch thick, so that the ship needed a fresh breeze to force her way through it; and 

 a few days later we found ice nearly 2 inches thick still farther south. 



" About the 20th of September several vessels loft, some it is reported leaving the sea to look 

 for right whales. Others went westward. 



"The northeast wind freshened to a gale, and on the 25th of September we had drifted to south 

 of Cape Lisburne, and in company with the Mount Wollaston anchored under the lee of Point 

 Hope. Next day took our anchors and steered south to leave the sea, but before we had reached 

 East Cape met a south wind and swung off again for Herald Island. October 1 , sighted Herald 

 Island, also vessels whaling, and soon after whales. The south wind, with a current running north, 

 had carried the ice so far that ships were now whaling close to the island in clear water. Learned 

 soon after that there had been many whales here ; that the Rainbow had worked up through 80 

 miles of ice and found them here about the middle of September, and that all the vessels here had 

 been doing well. There were in sight here nine sails; if any more, not immediately around the 

 island, and it was thought that all the others had left the sea. The last whales were taken here 

 October 10, by barks Cleone and Helen Mar. We took three only, making 330 barrels. For many 

 years I have not seen so many or such large whales as about here for the first week in October. 



" Left Herald Island October 10. On the 12th anchored in Saint Lawrence Bay. Found here 

 the Rainbow, 17 whales; Norman, 14 whales ; and Mount Wollaston, 8 whales. Soon after arrived 

 there the Pacific 11 whales, the Northern Light 9 whales, the Progress 8 whales, the Helen Mar 13 

 whales, and the Cleone 11 whales. 



" We sailed from Saint Lawrence Bay October 18, leaving five vessels there. Two days later 

 we killed and lost a right whale, near Saint Matthew's Island, by the sinking of the whale. And 

 now the season seems closed, and nothing remains but to make the best of our way to port. 



" Long before you will receive this, in all probability you have learned all that is to be known 

 concerning the vessels abandoned last season. Only two vessels survived the winter. There 

 were, I believe, five men, Hawaiian natives, who made their way over the ice to the Acors Barns, 

 the vessel that lay nearest the land, away to the east of Point Barrow. It chanced that in the 

 gale that soon came on, after the fleet was abandoned, that this vessel was driven through a break 

 in the ground-ice that walled the northern shore, and these men succeeded in reaching the land 

 and Point Barrow soon after the departure of . I he vessels that were saved. Three of these men 

 were badly frozen and soon died. The two others were kindly cared for by the nat ives on the point, 

 and when I saw them on board Hawaiian brig William H. Allen were fat and hearty. The bark 

 Clara Bell was abandoned a few miles south from Cape Smith. She was found lying at her anchor, 

 wholly clear from ice, and with no further damage than was done by the natives, who took what- 

 ever was of any use to them, and cut and hacked till they had made a bad looking vessel of her. 

 The first few vessels helped themselves to whatever was left of value, and the schooner Newton 

 Booth, of San Francisco, took the remaining oil. The Clara Bell lay there at her anchor till about 

 the 20th of September, when she broke adrift and came up with the current and went out of sight 

 in the ice to the northeast. She was last seen off Harrison's Bay. 



