The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1876-11-22
THE ARCTIC DISASTER,
Twelve Vessels with Part Of their Grow
Locked Up In tho Great leo Fields.

Twelve Vessels with Part Of their Crow
Locked Up In tho Great Ice Fields.
Another dismal story of loss, suffer-
ing and death has been added to the an
nails of the whale fishery. With the in
crease Of tho interest, the huge, oily
cetaceans have been driven, like our
Western buffaloes, from their old haunts.
out of the safer and more convenient
waters OF the Indian and Pacific oceans,
and must now be followed to their re-
treats among the ice foes guarding the
approach to either pole. But neither
this fact, nor the development Of the
earth's unsupported layers of blubber,
in the lands Of petroleum, have been
able to extirpate a branch of adventur-
GUS industry which has lasted for SO
many centuries. Nature, in the first
place, cannot quite produce an equal ar
ticle; and man, in the second place, in
stinctively clings to whatever brings
great reward once, though he be nine
times deceived. The excitement Of a
whale chase is not less than that CT q
stag hunt, apart from the value Of tho
booty. And SO men go down to the
deep, and undergo hardship, and long
absence from home, and manifold dan
gers, for sne sake Of the sport and its
chances.
The last disaster which has overtaken
a whole whaling fleet in the Arctic sea
is no less tragic than expensive. Fiji
teen vessels, having passed through
Behring's straits in search of walrus and
whale, were gradually forced by the
ice fields over to the northern shore of
Alaska, which they reached in the neigh
borhood of Point Barrow (between lat.
seventy-one degrees and seventy-two
degrees north) about the first of Au-
gust. Then commenced a series of
misfortunes which lasted for more than
six weeks. The field ice, brought down
upon them by western winds and forced
gradually eastward by the Asiatic gulf
stream, slowly inclosed them. One YES
sci was crushed even before reaching
Point Barrow, the extreme northern
headland of the continent, beyond
which the shore trends eastward and
southwark. The others, driven beyond
the point, were caught as in a trap. On
the fourteenth of August a north wind
broke up the ice, whales made their ap-
pearance, and the imperiled crews, for
getting their dangerous position, gave
themselves up to the chase. Possibly
they may have lost their best chance Of
escape from the coast; but it is easy to
understand how difficult it must have
been for them, after venturing so far, to
give up the prey which now offered it.
self to their hands. On the twenty
third their struggle begun-a veritable
struggle for life and death, which was
prolonged until the eighteenth of Sep
tember. Then, out of fourteenth YES
sells, only the barks Florenc and Three
Brothers came fortn from the jaws of
the ice, leaving twelve vessels and parts
Of their crew locked up for q winter
which, in their condition, has hardly
any other meaning than death.
We are not informed who the men
were who remained nor how many they
were. They were probably left by their
own choice, in the desperate hope of
keeping themselves alive until next
summer and saving their property. The
imagination hesitates to follow them to
that dread, appropriated coast which
lies just under the zone Of EXTREMIST
Arctic cold. 1t is possible that next
year may return some OF them to US to
tell a sad story of suffering; but it is
more probable that they never will be
seen again alive. Upon New Bedford
nce more, as in former days, falls the
heaviest share Of loss and sorrow; but
that staid old town holds fast to her
traditions, and her whalers will still 60
forth as Of old.-Iribune.