During the same month, July, 1879, that Nordenskjöld completed the northeast passage by sailing through Bering strait into the Pacific ocean, an expedition sailed from San Francisco northward through Bering sea on a voyage of discovery in Arctic regions.

This expedition was sent out by Mr. James Gordon Bennett, the owner of the New York Herald. Mr. Bennett bought and equipped a vessel, which he called the Jeannette. By special act of Congress, the Jeannette was conducted by the United States Navy, with the rights and privileges of a government vessel.

The command was offered to Lieutenant George W. De Long and he accepted, after the expedition was made national. De Long, it is said, believed that an expedition might reach the North Pole by following a branch of the Japan Current through Bering strait and into the Arctic ocean, a route which had never been attempted.

Many explorers who had made trips to the Arctic regions observed that the ice always drifted toward the southeast, and entered the Atlantic ocean between the islands of Spitzbergen and Greenland. It was thought that there must be a strong southeast current to carry this pack of floating ice always in the same direction. Instead of trying to sail northward between Spitzbergen and Greenland, where they must meet that great ice pack, these men said: “Let us enter the Arctic ocean through Bering strait and sail northward toward the pole. If the ship is caught in the ice pack, she will drift along with the pack into the Atlantic ocean. Perhaps the drift will carry the ship across the North Pole.”

De Long sailed from San Francisco on the Jeannette, July 8, 1879. It was a beautiful sunny day, and many vessels were gathered in San Francisco bay to attend the departure. Guns were fired, flags waved, and cheers given with a will for the brave men who were going to risk their lives in the search for the North Pole.

The Jeannette sailed away through the Pacific ocean. She crossed Bering sea in a heavy gale, and passed through Bering strait in safety. After rounding East cape, the watch in the crow’s nest saw some rude huts along the beach. They were the homes of the Tchuktches, the Siberian race which inhabits this peninsula.

The ice alongshore prevented De Long from landing, and the natives, seeing this, launched a large skin boat and went out to the ship. The Indian chief went with them, and they all boarded the Jeannette. These people could furnish very little information, because no one on board knew their language and they could speak no English. But De Long learned, by means of signs and motions, that Nordenskjöld, with the Vega, had wintered to the northwest of them, and that a few weeks before he had passed out through Bering strait.

The Tchuktches had a delightfully original way of asking for liquor. They bent their elbows and uttered the word “Schnapps.” But they did not get anything to drink, and soon returned to the shore.

The next day some men from the Jeannette succeeded in landing. They found the Tchuktches living in tents made of skin, and very dirty. They ate the raw flesh of the walrus and drank the blood. Their chief wore a red calico gown as a mark of his high rank. It was a cool garment for so cold a place, but the natives do not feel the cold as keenly as we should.

After sailing along the Siberian coast for a short distance, the Jeannette bade farewell to land and started on her perilous journey.

In the Arctic regions the ice is divided into what is known as young ice and the pack. Young ice is that which is forming all the time. It is thin at first, and vessels can usually cut their way through. The pack is the old ice which has been formed for many years, and is composed of large pieces, called floes, which are often thirty or forty feet thick and extend over a great surface both above and below the water.

The floes sometimes close up and float together as a pack, squeezing in everything between them. Sometimes they separate, leaving channels of water between. The pack floats with the wind and the current, and there is little chance of escape from it. If a ship is caught in the ice pack, it must float with it until a storm or some other change of weather breaks up the pack. When a ship is strong enough to resist the pressure of the ice pack, there is some chance of escape in the spring, but so tremendous is the power of the ice that Arctic voyagers avoid the pack if possible.

It seems to have been De Long’s intention deliberately to enter the pack and drift with it, for when, on September 6, he saw an opening between the Siberian and the American packs, he slipped in. At first the Jeannette pushed her way bravely, but after a few hours she was unable to proceed, and soon she was frozen in solidly.

To the southwest lay Herald island, which the men attempted to explore. Taking a dog sledge, they traveled to within six miles of the beach, where they found open water, so that they were obliged to return to the ship without setting foot on land. They found the ship drifting with the ice, and in danger of being crushed between the huge masses which surrounded her. Thundering noises from far away could be heard as the blocks of ice ground and grated together. At times the ice separated near the ship, leaving it in clear water. Again, the pack closed up about the stanch little vessel, which was like an eggshell at the mercy of enormous blocks of floating ice.

But all this time the Jeannette was drifting, and at length she came in sight of Wrangel Land. Before De Long lost sight of this land, he satisfied himself that it was an island, and not a part of Greenland as some explorers had supposed.

On November 10 the black Arctic night began, which lasted until January 25. The bitterness of the cold during this long period of darkness is inconceivable. The surface water was usually at a temperature of 29° F., the freezing point of salt water.

Notwithstanding their discomforts, the men followed a regular routine. At seven o’clock in the morning all on board were called and the fires were started in the galleys. At nine o’clock the explorers ate their breakfast. From eleven until one o’clock every man took his gun and went out on the ice to exercise. At three in the afternoon dinner was served, and the galley fires were put out in order to save coal. Between seven and eight o’clock tea was made. The crew lived on pork and beans, salt beef, and canned goods. Sometimes, when the hunters were successful, they had the meat of the seal, bear, or walrus. For amusements there were theatricals and a navigation class.

For one year and nine months the Jeannette floated in the pack, at the mercy of wind and tide. The coldest weather came in February, when the thermometer registered 58° below zero. In spite of the windings and turnings of their course, the general direction was toward the northwest. De Long trusted to the strength of his ship to withstand the pressure of the ice, and float across the pole out into the Atlantic ocean. At length, on May 17, 1881, land was sighted. It proved to be an island not indicated on the chart of that region. De Long therefore claimed it as a discovery, and named it Jeannette island. Another island was discovered not far away, and called Henrietta.

A sledge party under Melville was sent out from the ship to explore this island. The ice over which they traveled consisted of large blocks that floated rapidly and were constantly changing their position. Sometimes the men were obliged to jump into the water and swim from one block to another. The dogs were almost useless; they refused to jump, and tried to run away. The men pushed them into the water, and then they had to swim for their lives. This seems cruel treatment, but Arctic exploration means severe suffering for all who engage in it, and the help of the dogs was absolutely necessary.

Henrietta island was rocky and ice-capped, not in itself a very valuable possession for the United States of America; yet the Stars and Stripes were set up there, and a square copper case, containing copies of the New York Herald and a record of the voyage, was placed in a cairn. Then the sledge party returned to the ship. The Jeannette was in dire distress, for the ice around her, now rapidly breaking up, was by turns receding and closing in. Every time it closed in, it pressed against her sides with tremendous force, so that her timbers fairly creaked.

But brave Captain De Long would not leave his ship until he was quite certain that she was going to sink, and her hold was full of water before he gave orders to abandon her. Then the crew had to work with desperate haste to transfer provisions, tents, and boats to a safe place on the ice. At four o’clock in the morning of June 13, the Jeannette sank to the bottom of the Arctic ocean. The ice closed over the place where the little vessel had endured such terrific grinding for twenty-one months, and only a cabin chair and a few pieces of wood remained to mark the spot.

Imagine the condition of the men left on the ice so many miles from land. But they worked with calm courage to arrange their provisions and all the articles which were needful for camping on the sledges, and four days after the Jeannette had sunk, the retreat across the ice began.

This march was one of the most difficult ever undertaken. In one day the travelers could cover a distance of only a mile, or at most a mile and a half. Thirteen times they were compelled to go over the road, seven times with loads, six times without, traveling a distance of twenty-six miles in order to cover an advance of two miles. Many of the party were taken ill and had to be carried by their companions.

At the end of the week, De Long found that the ice over which they were traveling had floated northwest faster than they had traveled south; consequently the party was twenty-seven miles farther away from the Siberian coast than when they started. De Long kept this disheartening fact a secret from his men, lest they should despair.

On and on they traveled, day after day, until at last a dim line of land came into view; it proved to be a new island, with rocky shores and steep sides. It was a difficult task to cross the channel of water which separated the ice pack from this bleak coast, but Captain De Long ordered all his men to attempt the crossing. They raised the American flag and took possession of the island in the name of the President of the United States. This land De Long called Bennett island. Thousands of birds were found among the rocks, and the men had a refreshing feast after their weeks of weary work. The sides of Bennett island were bold and steep, and landslides occurred several times.

It was thought best to continue the journey by water. There were three boats, and a part of the supplies was placed in each boat. De Long commanded one, Lieutenant Chipps another, and Engineer Melville the third. When the New Siberian islands came in sight, the voyagers knew that they were nearing the mouth of the Lena river. This large stream flows across Siberia into the Arctic ocean. Its banks are usually occupied by tribes of Indians, who remain there during the summer season to fish and hunt. It was encouraging to know that land was so near, and the weary travelers kept bravely on, working with all their strength to steer through the masses of ice. It seemed as if two new perils sprang up for every danger escaped. In a heavy gale Lieutenant Chipps’s boat went down, and De Long and Melville lost sight of each other. Melville at length succeeded in guiding his boat to the mouth of the Lena river.

The country appeared to be deserted, and it seemed probable that they had escaped from drowning, only to perish from cold and starvation. But after they had traveled some distance up the river, and were just about to give up in despair, they met some natives.

Melville ordered the natives to spread the report of the two missing boats wherever they went. Two of them were sent with dog teams as a searching party to the different towns on the delta. After thirteen days they returned with tidings of the missing crews. They had met two men of Captain De Long’s party, Noros and Nindemann, who had succeeded in making their way to a deserted fishing station; but they were in a pitiable condition. Although a severe storm was raging, Melville started immediately for this place with his dog team, carrying food with him.

He found Noros and Nindemann in a small hut, nearly dead from cold and hunger. After making them comfortable, and learning from them where they had left De Long, Melville pushed on. Storms delayed him in his search, so that when he reached the part of the river where De Long’s party was last seen, he abandoned all hope of finding any of them alive, for they had been without provisions two days when Nindemann left them, and that part of the country was entirely destitute of food.

Yet Melville continued his search, determined to find the missing men, alive or dead. After heroic, untiring efforts, he found the dead bodies of his shipmates. They had perished five months before.

After attending to the burial of his brave comrades, and rewarding the natives who had assisted him, Melville set out for home. He arrived in New York, September 13, 1883, just one year from the day on which the three boats were separated in the gale. Due credit has been given Engineer Melville, both at home and abroad, for his promptness and energy in conducting the search for the lost crew of the Jeannette.

The fate of the Jeannette and her crew often leads people to overlook the results secured by her voyage. The long drift of twenty-one months enabled the voyagers of this expedition to acquire considerable knowledge of the ocean. The ship traveled over a large area, sometimes moving almost in a circle. The depth of the ocean, the character of its bed and its drift were determined. Many kinds of animal life were studied, and two islands were discovered.