Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1883-09-21
TIE BOrRN FROM WHICH NONE Return.

The bouurn from which no man ever re.
returns" might be well applied to the desc
late polar region where 81 many bones OF
foohardy explorers lie bleaching in the Arc
tic night. The piliful story is the same In
every case. The ship closed in by the ice
fields supplies exhausted; the crew making
across the dcsolatc iloeG for the nearest sta.
ton, aud gradually Iperishing on the way by
the most horrible Of deaths. exhaustation and
starvation. One or two perhaps survive the
terrible ordeal, and live to tell the story O,
their suifcrings. Then there are investiga.
tons and reports, and column Upon column
Of newspaper narration then the matter
drops, until another Inflated expedition is
heard from.
The failure of the Grealy relief expedition,
OF which Intelligence has recently been receiv
. is but in al,probabAlity, the FIRST mournful
chapter Of the tale Of horrors which is
to follow. Intelligence from the unfortunate
Greedy party is vague, bu: it is supposed that
the party must bc somewhere between their
station on Lady Ffanklin Bay and Littlcton
Island. The Grecly expedition, it will be
remembered, was the party sent out by the
United States Government 10 take part in the
great international system of taking mcteoro-
logical observations in the Arctic regions.
Other countries, including England, Ger.
many, Austria, Norway, Sweden and Russia,
sent out expeditions at the same time but
the Greedy party WAS assigned the iarthest
north, exposed aud most dangerous Of all the
stations, 1t being about Two ,grees north of
the eighiieth parallel of latitud1-tivc degrees
nearer the pole than any other station.
The steamer "Proteus" was to have
brought back the party, but like near
~ all vessels vcnturing into these
icy seas, she was caught in the foes
about 100 miles from the station
on Lady Franklin Bay and wrecked.
The party on board the ship probably did the
onl, safe thing by Immediately returning
southwark, and 30 saving their own lives.
II they had attempted to continue On, and
even if they had reached the Greedy station
100 miles distant, it is not likely that any
good would have been accomplished, as their
provisions would bavc been exhausted, and
the scanty store Of the chseryation party
would only have had SO much the Iiore
drain. and the augmented party would have
hal to cross the ice-plains with even grea,
difficulties to contend with. \ small dotach-
ment of the Protcus party might have beep
sent on to warn Lieut.. Greely and this,
probably, would have been the proper plan
10 pursue. But the question was, who would
undertake the difficult and dangerous mis-
SION On the whole, it seemed b.tter that
the party should return with news of the
loss of the ship, and that new relief party
properly equipped should be sent out. The
slipwrecked party, accordingly, retreated to
Upefnayis.
Lieut. Greedy had orders from the sccre-
tary of war to abandon ms station on the
first day of September, aud st ut soiliward
Ii these orders were obeyed, the failure OF
tho Protcus expedition is not 50 much of u
disaster as it would appear. The graf dis
aster, or bunder, or fault, or whatever one
may choose TO call it, seems to have been in
the failure OF Lieut.. Darlington TO land the
stores and house provided him ut Lttetou
Island or some available station on Smiths