St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-07-18

pare them according to your Judgment and bring
them home. l.
lSignedl W. &C CHANDLER, Secretary of the Navy
GEO. KEENAN, INTERVIEWED.
WASHINGTON, July 17.-Mr. George Kennan,
of this city, well known arctic traveller and au-
thor, who has taken an active interest in the re-
cent attempts to relieve Lieutenant Greely's
party, and who went before the arctic relief
board last spring, to urge the offerings of such
reward as would secure the cooperation Of
whalers in search was asked by, the Associated
Press reporter tonight what he thought of the
news received from st. Johns. He replied:
cit story Of remarkable and heroic achieve
ment in a field clouded by disaster, due to in
competence in Washington. If Greely and his
party had all returned in safety to the United
States, as they might have done, had they been
properly supported, their arctic record in point Of
skillful management and snccess, would
have been unparalleled. No other Arctic expe-
dition has ever spent two consecutive winters
and part Of third in such high latitudes, and
achieved such results without casualty or single
case of serious sickness. II Lieut.. Greely had
found at the mouth Of Smiths sound the shelter
and food which he had right to expect there he
would probably have brought his entire party
to the United States in perfect health after three
winters in the highest northern latitudes that has
ever been reached and after series of shedding
campaigns which, for boldness and skillful exc
cution, has rarely if ever been surpassed.
''Could the disaster which befelthis party have
been avoided with the knowledge available at the
time the relief expeditions were fitted .out?"
Enthusiastically, and that is the pity Of it.
1t doubles the grief which must be felt in the
face of such terrible catastrophe, to think that
the ships on two successive years, and probably
a third, were in position to land stores, which
would have saved the lives OF those eighteen
dead men. Beebe, in 1882 anchored in the har-
Dor, just north of Cape Sabine, with ship full
of stores. Darlington, the next summer,
anchored in the same place, also with ship
full Of stores, and few days
later the Yantic, with four months
provisions on board, was only thirty miles away.
Any one Of these three ships might have landed
stores enough exactly where Greely afterwards
made his winter camp, to have carried that brave
party through, but their commanding officers
were not ordered to do so, and they did not think
of it,
'sWere Greelys movments those which it was
anticipated he would maker"
'sThey were precisely such as anticipated.
1t WIS thought at the signal office that he would
remain at his station until September /, but as
pointed out IN letter to the
Now York Herald, on the nth OF last September
ifhe remained until September he could not get
away at all that year, on account of the impracti
cabilty of shedding operations along that coast in
the fall. therefore thought he would abandon
his station in July or August, 1888, and come
down to the mouth of Smiths sound in boats, as
he was in fact doug at the very time my letter
was written. 1t was, Of course, a terrible shock
and disappointment to him when he failed to find
the shelter and food which he expected, but the
party seems to have faced the
terrors of arctic winter without, shelter, fire
adequate food, in the most heroic way, and to
Il
and tenacity. If four hundred more rations
could have been saved from the wreck Of the
Proteus, they would have carried the whole party
through-all but one of the dead perished last
spring after the 4th of April
''If 1t. Darlington had landed stores on his
way north at Littleton Island, in accordance with
what were known Us his ''supplementary instruc-
tons would such stores have been of any use
to Lieut.. Greelyl''
GAS it turned out not the slightest. There
were few hundred ratons on Litteton Island,
but Greely could not get across the tossing ice
to Smiths sound to avail himself Of them. The
place to land stores, repeatedly pointed out by
DR.. Hoadley, Mr. Merriam and others, and as
shown by the example of Nare's expedition, was
the western coast Of the sound, the coast that
Greedy must come down, not opposite the coast
which he might never reach. it is to the caches
made by the British expedition of 1875 Oh the
western coast that the few survivors Of Greely's
'How important are the discoveries made by
Lieut.. Greely?''
ssFrom point of view on arctic geography
they are of first class importance Lieut. Greely
has not only taken away from Contender Mark
ham, Of the British navy, the blie ribbon on
arctic discovery for the highest latitude ever at
tanned in any part of the world, but he has
greatly extended the limits of Mares explorations
both in Greenland and Grinnell Land, and has
given severe blow to Captain Mares palace
crystic ice' and the theories which the latter
founded upon it. The fact
that two of Greelys Shedding parties were stop
ped by open winter in the polar basin, and that
both were at times adrift on strong currents
which threatened to carry them helplessly away
northward, would seem to show the polar basin
is not the solid of ancient immoyable.ice
wqich Mares describes, and which he declared
'never navigable." Lieut.. Greely's explo
rations extended over three degrees of
latitude and nearly forty degrees
OF longitude. He has virtually ascer
tai NED the true outline of Grinnell, has crossed
from east to west and on the northern coast Of
Greenland has gone degree of latitude and
tens degrees of longitude beyond the farthest
point reached by Captain Mares and the accom-
plished sledgng officer, Lieut.. Beaumont
These achievements reflect the highest credit upon
Greely and his men, but to them must
Of course be added the great mass of scientific
knowledge gathered by the party during their
two years at Lady Franklin Bay, the records of
which have fortunately been saved. When these
observations shall have been ,collated and put in
order, they WILL think, be found not second in
importance to any furnished by the circle of in
ternational polar stations