, 1882-08-05
De Long's Bad Luck.

10 DIk"t De Long ha3 al aioag mag.
med that Stnlaoy WAS myth, aai sup
posei he had passed :. long beiara, sad
I've socks b,iare ;.s death hs SD IN his
notebook "Qaite televs We ass n tie
island of Titarv. ard twenty-five miles
trom kun,sS-SasSa. lie WAS be.. iider-
ed ty the rnsze "f rivers flowing aud IN
terming'ing on the de!sa proper, snd in
his own weak condition had Put the 6is-
tauces accomplished long,r than thy
really wcre When lie reached that bluff
on which were the Doctor anl AZ Ssm,
and under the shelter Aich was Sale
way off, mast us ,te oJhsrs exPjtei- Then
h. must have sen q, srlv Jhat h. hai
miscalcu'a ed, aEd that be Was 81 less,
hundred miles FROM The kumAk-Snyks,
which few days before he bad imagined
"rly ;Hen;y uil,s SWAY.
Fate seemed against him Had he
landed thirty miles iur,her vest. he would
have struck vllage Of natives Wh" re
side north Of Bnlnn all winter He also
passed within twenty versts of hat
where twenty reindeer cartasses were
hanging for the winter food. He had,
unfortunately, no shotgun, from i-s hev-
ing been LETT by hrs orders on tire ice
where the Jeanette went down, and
though deer were rare. there Vas 40 lack
Of ptarmisan. De Long Is constantly To
coIdinghere numerous ptarm;.an tracks,
but for their capture Alexis had only b
rifle, and Though good shot. SUccgeie"
in obtaining Only few." On the dsy
Norcs and NiHdrrman were sent away by
De Long, large flock of two hundred
ptarmigan settled within quarter Of
mile of the party, hut none were shot.
With a SINGLE shotgun in Alczis's haud-
all might have been saved The season
WAS too late for deer. a strange incident
also came to my ears At GemuvIalck. IL
seems that some Tonguse natives, travel
ing from the north 20 B,kotf saw the foot
prints Of the party, two days old, and
picked mp the Remington which De Long
had left IN a hut half way from The land
ing place to the bluff The natives were
frightened. and thought the footprints
were those OF smusglrrs and robbers, and
lft the ground without following. On
arriving at Gemoyialck they heard If the
presence of the Melville party Of three
and the loss of the Captains party, and
they, fearing to be punisaed for not fol
loving the footsteps, kep: the information
to themselves for some weeks-unjil too
late.
DrLong made mistakes in eadeav0uug
II secure the safety If hls own private
logs, which were bulky, as well as the
scientific Instrument and -9;leT Isl iess-
impedlments-a heavy burden for the
mrn, These could have been left IN the
cache near the place where they landed,
but they had to be borne by the men
through all the days If their weary march.
These things filled one en;ire dog sled
when f0und near the bluff. After Noros
and Ninderman ieit, the party did not
make more than eighteen miles from. Oc-
tober 9th to the Both. DLoug's last
effort was to carry Lis private logs and
charts up from the place under the bluff.
and where they would have been swept
away by the spring foods to the top of
the bluff where the doctor and All Sam
perished But he only succeeded IN car
ryIng the chart case up Even before
Norus and NiudermaH # DeLOng WAS
very weak He used to walk ten minutes
and then lie down and rest, saying to the
men, ''don't mind me 60 on rs far as
you can viii follow During his
wanderings on the delta DcLong built a
arge bonfire as high as thirty feet every
night, the last one being few hundred
yards from the bluff where they all per
ished, in the hope Of attracting the atten-
ton of parties who, he kept saying, would
certainly be looking for him. But the
fire blazed in vain There was not hu-
man being at the time Of their death
rithin hundred miles MelylIle's party
at Gemovlalck were about this distance
away.
The blaze from such large bonfire on
the plains Of the delta should have teen
sen in that frosty air from forty to fifty
versts away, and had the search parties
been out the probabilities are that De
Long would have been rescued The
river was open tIE October 9Th. as De
Long says hn his notebook. The Lena's
mouth near Gemovialcl; is very wide al
very shallow. 1t was frozen over and
broken up repeatedly from the time Mel
vile and his party landed 20 October 5'h.
The tomb aud the large cross over the
grave On the mountain, near the hut Of
Mutock, may be seen at A distance Of
twenty or thirty versis. Arrangements
have been ma,ie by Governor Tenernaief.
of Yaktu.k, t. have the entire earn COW
cred With deep layer If earth to prevent
the possibility "f the sur tbaw'ng the
bodies in the tomb. Ii this lie done
promptly donbtl-ss the bodies vii remain
untouched by decay forever, as the ground
remains frDz.h On the DELTA ali the year
round at depth Of two feet. The bodies
can, therefore, b. removed a. a later
da,e # desired.
Tie great cattle range of Wyoming
under the military protection Of Firt Nc
Kinney, is about three hundred mites
square. Ia this area are LOS grazEg
500, 900 head OF cattle, worth 81 Per
head, amounting to sl3, 800 ,cco, 70 Which
can be added the value Of the hoses sfsd
a . "a