The Corwin arrived here on the Fourth, and, in honor of the day, made some noise with her cannon in concert with those belonging to the fort, to the steamer St. Paul, and to the post of the Western Fur and Trading Company across the bay. We have taken on a supply of coal and provisions for nine months, in case we should by any accident be caught in the ice north of Bering Strait before calling here again in the fall. The coast will also be carefully searched for traces of the Jeannette and missing whalers in case any portion of their crews have come over the ice last winter. Perhaps a month will be spent thus, when an attempt will be made to reach Wrangell Land, where the Jeannette probably spent her first winter. And since the Corwin has already passed Cape Serdzekamen twice this season, we have sanguine hopes of success under so favorable a condition of the ice.
Arctic explorations are exciting much interest among the natives here.
Last evening the shamans called up the spirits supposed to be familiar with polar matters. The latter informed them that not only was the Jeannette forever lost in the ice of the Far North with all her crew, but also that the Corwin would never more be seen after leaving St. Michael this time, information which caused our interpreter to leave us, nor have we as yet been able to procure another in his place. This is the busy time of the year at St. Michael, when the traders come with their furs from stations far up the Yukon and return with next year's supply of goods. Those of the Western Fur and Trading Company left for the upper Yukon yesterday, and those connected with the Alaska Commercial Company will follow as soon as the new steamboat, which they are putting together here, can be got ready. The party of prospectors which left San Francisco this spring in a schooner, to seek a mountain of solid silver, reported to have been seen some distance up a river that flows into Golofnin Bay on the north side of Norton Sound, about one hundred miles from here, has arrived, and is now up the river prospecting.