260 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
THE CRUISE OF THE CORWIN. 
The official report of Captain Hooper, commanding the revenue steamer 
Corwin, now in the Arctic in search of the missing whale vessels and under orders 
to communicate with the Jeannette, was received at the treasury department 
August 6th. The report is dated Norton Sound, June roth. Captain Hooper 
Says :— 
We left Ounalaska on the 8th inst. and visited St. George and St. Paul’s on 
the oth inst. After communicating with the special agents on these islands and 
taking on board a quantity of pup seal skins for Arctic clothing for the officers 
and crew and putting the ice breaker in place we proceeded north the same 
evening. 
On the 11th we encountered ice a few miles north of Nounivak Island, in 
latitude 60 deg. 45 min. north, longitude 167 deg. 50 min. west. A fresh south- 
west gale was blowing at the time, so we did not enter the ice until it moderated 
on the 13th inst., after which we worked our way along to the northward, taking 
advantage of every opening or lead which showed itself. We worked along in 
this way, sometimes making a few miles a day and at others drifting helplessly in 
the pack until the 17th inst., when a sharp northeast gale broke up and opened 
the ice and started it off shore, allowing us to proceed on our way the following 
day. We arrived here this afternoon and found the sound filled with ice. We 
are now at anchor sixteen miles from St. Michael’s. We shall endeavor to get a 
boat ashore to reach there overland to-morrow and deliver the mail which we 
have on board for that place, and continue northward as fast as the ice will 
permit. 
All hands are in good health and everything satisfactory. The Corwin has 
proved herself a very able vessel. Although forced through heavy ice for nearly 
a week, and at times lifted bodily up by the pack she seems none the worse for it. 
I hope to be in Kotzebue Sound ahead of the whisky traders and break up their 
‘Ilicit trade for the summer. I shall endeavor to get some tidings from the miss- 
ing whalers from the natives in Kotzebue Sound, and also from those on the 
Asiatic side, either in Plover Bay or in the vicinity of East Cape, whichever the 
ice will permit us to visit first. 
While in the ice, off Romanzoff, some natives visited the vessel and reported 
the past winter as the most severe ever known, and some sealers from Norton 
Sound, who have just come on board, confirm the report. They say the ice in 
the sound only broke up yesterday. 
A day later than the report Captain Hooper wrote to Major Clarke, chief 
of the Revenue Marine service, giving an account of the hardships already 
experienced on the voyage northward. In this letter he says :— 
This will be the last chance to report, I suppose, until we return to San 
Francisco. We had a hard passage through the ice. We entered it on the 1 3th, 
after trying in vain to get around it, and were six days getting here. The first 
