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Perils of Arctic Voyages
HE American Arc- months drifting in the pack will make a tic Expedition, little mass of volcanic rock like our island commanded by as pleasing to the eye as an oasis in the Lieutenant desert." The rocky cliffs of the island George W. De- appeared with a snow-covered slope, the Long, of the highest and further corner seeming to United States be a volcano top.
The Jeannette drifted Navy, which left past on the north side; the ice was so San Francisco in broken, and the pack running so rapidly July, 1879, was that DeLong did not think it prudent to projected by make an attempt to land.
James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the A few days later the pleasing sight was New York Herald. After the return of renewed, more land was ahead, and the the last of the two successful expeditions ice very slack, with many large lanes of which he had sent to Africa under Henry water varying in length from an eighth M. Stanley, Mr. Bennett decided to send of a mile to three miles, and in width out, at his own expense, an expedition to from twenty to one hundred feet. The attempt to reach the North Pole by way lanes were very tantalizing; they seemed of Behring Strait. Lieutenant DeLong to be within a radius of five miles, but became interested in the undertaking, and the islands were from thirty to forty miles was made first officer. The Jeannette off, and from that five miles radius to was the ship chartered for the expedition. them, the ice was as close and compact The vessel sailed, and spent the first as ever. Estimating the distance to be winter in an ice-pack. but fifteen or twenty miles, Engineer On the sixteenth of May, 1881, there Melville, in company with Dunbar and was great excitement on board on account Nindemann, and three other seamen, set of having sighted land-the first land to out from the ship with a fifteen-dog team greet the eye since March, 1880, fourteen to visit this second island. They landed months before. What it had to do in the on it, and took possession for the United economy of nature, standing desolate States, naming it Henrietta-the name of among the icy wastes, was not the ques- a sister of Mr. Bennett; a cairn was built tion; it might be the spot to which the and a record was placed within it, and a ducks and geese had been flying, and if limited examination made of twelve hours. the ship could get some of them for a It was found to be a desolate rock, surchange, what a treat! DeLong wrote: rounded by a snow cap which feeds sev- "Fourteen months without anything to eral glaciers on its east face. Within the look at but ice and sky, and twenty inaccessible cliffs, nesting dovekies were 114
