NALORE 
169 
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1881 
ARCTIC SUCCESS AND DISASTER 
HIS has been a stirring Arctic week. First we have 
the publication of one of the most remarkable narra- 
tives of one of the most successful Arctic voyages ever 
made, to which we refer in detail on another page. On 
Tuesday an influential deputation waited on the Earl of 
Northbrook, to urge upon Government the necessity of 
sending out an expedition to succour Mr. Leigh Smith in 
the Ezra. And, also, on the same day, the wires which 
about two years ago transmitted the welcome news of the 
safety of Nordenskjéld’s expedition in the Vega, and the 
successful navigation of the North-east Passage, bore to 
Europe the sad news of disaster to the Feanmette. Sad 
though the news be, it is not nearly so bad as was to 
be feared, for we doubt if many besides Mr. Gordon 
Bennett had any faith in the survival of the expedition, 
and the search parties that were to be sent out next spring 
were generally looked on as forlorn hopes. From the 
news which has been transmitted from Yakutsk to St. 
Petersburg, and thence to London and Paris, it is not 
quite easy to make out the details. The following extract 
is from the telegram of the St. Petersburg Vew York 
Herald correspondent to the Paris office of that paper ; 
he quotes from a telegram to General Ignatieff, dated 
Irkutsk, December 19 :— 
“The Governor of Jakutsk writes that on September 
14 three natives of Hagau Oulouss de Zigane, at Cape 
Barhay, 140 versts north of Cape Bikoff, discovered a 
large boat, with eleven survivors from the shipwrecked 
steamer Jeannette, who had suffered greatly. The adjunct 
of the chief of the district was immediately charged to 
proceed with a doctor and medicines to succour the sur- 
vivors at Jakutsk and to search for the rest of the ship- 
wrecked crew. Five hundred roubles have been assigned 
to meet the most urgent expenses. ‘The engineer, Mel- 
ville, has sent three identical telegrams, one addressed 
to the London office of the Heald, one to the Secretary 
of the Navy at Washington, the third to the Minister of 
the United States at St. Petersburg. The poor fellows 
have lost everything. Engineer Melville says that the 
Jeannetie was caught and crushed by the ice on June 23, 
in latitude 77 and 157 east longitude. The survivors of 
the Jeannette left in three boats fifty miles from the mouth 
of the Lena. They lost sight of each other during a 
violent gale and dense fog. Boat No. 3, under command 
of Melville, having reached the eastern mouth of the Lena 
on September 29, was stopped by icebergs near to the 
hamlet of Idolaciro Idolatre on October 29. There also 
arrived at Bolonenga boat No. 1, with the sailors Hind- 
mann and Hoross, with the information that Lieut. de 
Long, Dr. Ambler, and a dozen other survivors had 
landed at the northern mouth of the Lena, where they are 
at present in a most distressing state, many having limbs 
frozen. An expedition was immediately sent from Bolo- 
nenga to make diligent search for the unfortunates in 
danger of death.” 
From this and from the Reuter’s telegram it would 
seem that Boat No. 1 has not yet turned up. The spot 
where the disaster overtook the Feanmet¢e is a short dis- 
VoL. xxv.— No. 64 
tance east of the most easterly of the New Siberian 
Islands. The exact spots where the boats landed are not 
quite clear, and probably there has been some misspelling 
of names ; but itis evident that it is somewhere on the com- 
plicated delta of the Lena. It will be remembered that the 
Feannetie, the old Pandora, was sent out two and a half 
years ago by Mr. Gordon Bennett, for Arctic exploration 
by the Behring Straits route. It now appears that Mr. 
Bennett's instructions were that the ship should keep by 
the east side of Siberia, and embrace the first favourable 
opportunity of making for the Pole. These instructions 
her Commander, Capt. De Long, had evidently been 
doing his best to carry out. She was last seen in Septem- 
ber, 1879, when she was steering north-east from Wrangel 
Land. Probably she has run round the north side of the 
Island, and attempting the north-west route been caught in 
the drift like the Tegetthaf7, and finally crushed. The suffer- 
ings of the unfortunate explorers must excite universal 
pity, though all will rejoice that it has not come to the 
worst with them. The route they took was a perfectly 
new one, and it is possible they may have something new 
and important to tell us. The expedition was in some 
respects of the old-fashioned kind, rushing blindly into 
regions about which absolutely nothing was known ; 
but this is how all knowledge has been purchased. Still, 
had something of the scientific method of Baron Norden- 
skjéld been adopted, the result might have been different- 
Further news of the shattered but so far saved expedition 
will be anxiously looked for ; they will have an exciting 
and terrible story to tell, but we trust that their sufferings 
will prove not barren of results to science. If they have 
established the existence of a line of islands to the north 
of the New Siberian Islands, one more of the Arctic 
problems will have been solved. 
In view of this disaster, no doubt it will be a relief to 
many to learn that Lord Northbrook’s reply to the depu- 
tation from the Geographical Society was quite favourable 
and that probably a relief expedition will be sent out for 
the Ezra. At the same time we believe a Government 
expedition, however much Mr. Leigh Smith deserves, 
such attention, was not necessary ; and we doubt much 
if Mr. Leigh Smith’s relatives were not rather surprised 
when it was suggested to them that they should 
petition for Government assistance. Now that the 
search expedition is virtually decided on we wish it every 
success, at the same time hoping that it will be strictly 
confined to its ostensible purpose. To Government Arctic 
explorations we are certainly favourable ; but we trust 
that the next expedition sent out will be constituted and 
organized on as thorough a scientific method as that in 
the Vega ; and that, as in the Vega, there will not only be 
a special scientific staff, but that the real commander of 
the expedition, subject to contingencies of navigation, will 
be a man with the scientific training and methods of 
Baron Nordenskjéld. In short, let the staff consist of 
men trained in the various departments of science, and 
not primed in haste for the occasion. 
The unfortunate disaster to the Feannette willno more 
check Arctic exploration than many another greater dis- 
aster that has marked the progress of knowledge; it can 
only be hoped, while expressing our genuine sympathy 
with the sufferers, that Arctic explorers will learn from it 
all the lessons it ought to teach. 
I 
