The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-11-26 00:00:00

ARCTIC EXPLORATION,

Some further details of the interesting discoveries
made by the search ship Rodgers in and about Wran-
gell Land are to hand (says The Times of Tuesdao.
It .ppearg that thA Polg, atter leaving St.
lal'''rerlo DaSt, passed through liehring Straits, and
affected a landing on Herald Island on August 24.
Having left records of her visit there, she steamed for
Wrangell Land, which she reached on the evening of
the 26th of August. Finding a safe harbour,
she despatched pattiee, to tho eastern and
westeicn 6oath iti search of cairns or traces of
the Jeannette. Captain Berry, who commanded
the land party reached a mountain 2,500 ft. high,
from which he saw open water around the island
everywhere, except between the west and south-south-
west, where a high mountain seemed to terminate the
lands Master H. S. Waring went round the eastern
coast and northern side, And being blocked by ice had
to return by land to the ship. Ensign Hunt went by
the western coast and reached the ice which had
blocked Waring and found it impenetrable. He had
passed to the northern side and could see 'Waring's
position, so that the entire island had thus been skirted.
No traces of the Jeannette were found.

The New York Herald correspondent says that he
was " surprised to see the ice moving constantly to
the westward along the shore, when, according to a
natural supposition, the wind would blow it off.
Sometimes when he went to bed, he would see the
pack ice filling the sea as far as the eye could reach,
and the next morning when he went on deck he would
behold a vast expanse of open water."
Wrangell Land is now said to be about 60 miles
long, and there is a current at the northern end
of it running to the north-west, at the rate of
about six knots an hour. At the south-east of
the island, the ice was observed to be drifting
in a northerly direction, at the rate of about two
miles a day. From all this it is inferred that the
Jeannette, which was last seen in September, 1879,
steaming towards Wrangell Land, did not reach that
island, and that either she was caught in the pack,
and is being carried by the current in a northerly
direction, at about the 172nd meridian, or that finding
the sea open, as the Rodgers did, she has been induced
to leave the land, and has taken advantage of open
leads through the ice, and has sailed northwards into
unknown space. Efforts are still being made to search
for her or her crew if they have abandoned their ship.
The Rodgers will winter at St. Lawrence Bay of
Kotzebue Sound, on the Alaska coast, and will in the
spring make further search.
The American observation party have reached Point
Barrow, where they will winter, and where they will
have opportunity of searching among the wreckage,
which is so often washed on that shore for any records
of the missing ship, and the Royal Geographical
Society are about to make representations to the
Colonial Office, with a view of inducing the Hudson
Bay Company to send a party by land to search the
neighbourhood of the Mackenzie River.
By the arrival of the American observation party
at Point Barrow, a great step has been made towards
the realisation of the scheme of simultaneous observa-
tions in the Polar regions which was proposed at the
International Polar Conference. Posts have now
been established at Point Barrow, at Lady Franklin
Bay, and in Nova Zembla, and the Austrian Govern-
ment will shortly have completed their arrangements
for establishing their post at Jan Mayen Island, while
the German Government in their budget have provided
for the expense of an Arctic observatory.