New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-10-06
convictions undisturbed by Senatorial caprice
and unawed by executive tyranny or threats
FATE OF THE JEANNETTE.

The dsquletlng rum0rS respecting the fate
of the Jeanette do not bear critical examine
ton. One of these vague surmses was that the
vessel had been wrecked east of Cape Barrow
and that four white men had been seen going
toward Mackenzie River early ia the spring
The snow huts where they had lived during
the winter were reported to have been discov-
cred, together with tracks of sledges and hui
man footprints; and the natives were said to
have seen several dead men in the huts and to
have recovered new brass kettle from the
wreck. This was the account which the COM
mander of the Russian corvette Strel0ch gave to
the officers of the Rodgers in st. Lawrence
Bay. He had been in communication with the
officers of the American whalers r. b. Hendy
and Daniel Webster, but owing to his mper-
feet knowledge of English had misrepresented
the facts
1t now appears from the statements of the
captains of the whalers, who have arrived at
San Francisco, that the information derived
from the natives was almost uninteligible. 1t
was communicated by signs, and was to the
effect that vessel had been wrecked far to the
east, and that four men were either sick or
dead. Nothing was said about snow huts,
sledge tracks, or the Mackenzie River. A brass
kettle manufactured in New England was pro-
duced, and Captain Clifford inferred that it had
come from recent wreck, as it looked new and
bright. There were four dead men in the
cabin of the Vigilant when she was found en-
bedded in the ice near Cape Serdze last spring.
The distance of the wreck from Cape Barrow
great that the officers of the whalers paid
no heed to the coincidence. The Vigiant,
however, may not have been wrecked where
she was discovered in the spring. She may
have been caught III the ice on the American
side of the basin, where she could be seen by
the Esquimaux, and subsequently have been
carried by the Grift further out toward Siberia.
The coincidence between the number of fingers
held up by the half-wittod natives and the
number of bodies in the deserted cabin is GER
tainly Il remarkable one and brass kettles can
be kept bright in a whlpr's sculery. Ger
tainly there is more reason for connecting both
kettle and sailors with the Vigilant than with
the Jeanette.
Captain Clifford, it must be borne in mind,
commanded the whaler Daniel Webster which
was crushed in an ice pack near Cape Barrow.
The crew were rescued and apportioned among
several vessels the captain returning to San
Francisco by the II. B. lIcndy, and meeting the
Russian corvette on the voyage Nine of the
crew were put on board the Corwin when she
reached Cape Barrow on August 16 from
Nraugell Land. IT Is sale to INFER that what
ever information these shipwrecked sailors had
obtained from the natives relative TO the mys-
FERROUS ice huts, the scdge tracks in the direc-
ton Of the Mackenzie River and the new brass
kettle would be promptly communicated to Cap
tain Hooper. Yet that officer, in his informal
report to the Chief of the Revenue Marine
Bureau, does not make the faintest reference to
these startling rumors. He even takes pains to
confirm the opinion of the whalers that the
Jeanette entered what they term Z" the Hole :"
"A blind passage northeast of Herald Island
deserted 10y the officers of the Corwin during
the recent voyage-and was there shut in two
years ago. He had no intention, when he was
at Cape Barrow, Of exploring the coast toward
the Mackenzie River in search of any party of
Arctic stragglors, but reported that he would
return TO the west coast and attempt a second
landing ut Wrangell Land He could OF have
written III this way if there had been any
ground for the suppostion that the Jeanette
had been wrecked on the Cape two Yeas ago
and that a party of survivors had been bur
rowing in the Snow all winter and had then set
ont on foot for the nearest settlements Of the
Hudson Bay Company.