176 | National Geographic Magazime. 
‘Plover bay, Cape Tchaplin and St. Lawrence bay, upon the 
Siberian side, were all visited in turn, but without success, and I 
then determined to pass through Bering strait and enter the 
Arctic ocean. This was done upon the 3d of July, after a heavy 
snow-storm in the morning, followed, later in the day, by a fog 
so dense that we passed through the straits without seemg land on 
either side, or the Diomede islands, in the middle. 
Entering the Arctic we pushed on toward Point Hope, to the 
northward of which the “ Little Ohio” had last been seen. On 
the morning of the 4th of July the land about Point Hope was 
sighted and soon afterwards we met our first ice, coming out in 
floes from Kotzebue sound, stretching some distance from the 
shore and slowly moving to the northward and westward with 
the current. 
Skirting along this ice with the hope of getting around it to 
the northward of Point Hope, without success, we entered it, and 
after working through it for several miles with considerable 
difficulty we finally cleared it and came to anchor off the native 
village at Point Hope, finding there two whalers who had just 
preceded us, and obtaining the news that the bark “Little Ohio” 
had been wrecked directly opposite the point where we were then 
at anchor. Taking on board, the next day, those survivors of 
this shipwreck who still remained at this place, we left for St. 
Michaels, near the mouth of the Yukon river, there to transfer 
the survivors to the steamer of the Alaska Commercial Company, 
and to send the news of this sad disaster to the Navy Department 
and to the world. In passing through the ice outside of Point 
Hope the first polar bear of the season was sighted, posmg upon 
a high floe of ice. A few shots settled his case and his body wa® 
fortunately secured, his skin now forming one of the trophies of 
the cruise. 
On our way back through Bering strait we found the vexa- 
tious combination (to be met with again and again in the cruise) 
of a heavy fog, much drift ice, and an opposing current. 
Reaching St. Michaels we found theré two steamers of the 
Alaska Commercial Company at anchor, besides several river- 
steamers, and a summer rendezvous of natives from the coast, 
miners from the interior, and traders and missionaries from the 
Yukon,—all here to meet their annual mails and supplies. In 
addition there was a party of government surveyors to determine 
‘the boundary-line, an account of whose early journey has been 
