St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-07-18
pare them according to your judgment and bring

pare them according to your judgment and bring
[Signedl WE. CHANDLER, Secretary of the Navy.
GEO. KEENAN, INTERVIEWED.
WASHINGTON July 17.-Mr. George KEENAN,,
of this city, a 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 ne thought of the
news received from st. Johns. He replied
ut is story Of remarkable and heroic achieve
ment in a field clouded by disaster, due to in
competence in Washington II Greedy 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-
diton has ever spent two consecutive winters
and part of third in such high attitudes, and /
achieved such results without casualty or single
of serious sickness. II Lieut.. Greedy had
found al 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 attitudes that has
ever been reached and after series Of shedding
campaigns which, for holiness and skillful exc
cution, has rarely if ever been surpassed
''Could the disaster which befel this party have
been avoided with the knowledge available at the
time the relief expeditions were fitted out:'
ENTHUSIASTICALLY, and that is the pity of 1t.
1t doubles the grief which must be felt in the
face of such terrible catastrophe, to think that
the ships en- two successive years, and probably
u third, were in position to land stores, which
vpTlld ho1fa no Twas OF rh0un Qifr
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, only thirty miles away.
Any one of these three ships might have landed
stores enough exactly where Greedy afterwards
made his winter camp, to have carried that brave
party through, but their commanding officers
not ordered to do so, and they did not think
of it,
.'Were Greely's movments those which it was
anticipated he would maker"
''They were precisely such as anticipated.
1t was thought at the signal Office that he would
remain at his station until September /, but as 1
pointed cut IN letter to the
New York Herald, on the 18th of last September
if he remained until September he could not get
away ut all that year, account OF the impracti-
the fall. l therefore thought he would abandon
his station in July or August, 1888, and come
down to the mouth Of Smith sound in boats, as
he was in fact doug ut the very time my letter
was written 1t was, Of course, 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 or
adequate food. in the most heroic way, and to
have held on to the last with unflinching courage
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 persisted 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 as his supplementary instruc
tons, would such stores have been OF any use
to Lieut.. Greely?'
''As it turned out not the slightest. There
were few hundred rations on Lttleton Island,
but Greedy could not get across the tossing Ice
to Smiths sound to avail himself of them. The
place to land stores, as repeatedly pointed out by
DR.. Hoadley, Mr.. Merriam and others, and as
shown by the example OF Mares expedition, was
the western coast Of the sound, the coast that
Greedy must come down, not opposite the coast
which he might never reach. 1t is to the caches
made by the British expedition of 1875 on the
western coast that the few survivors Of Greely's
party mainly owe their lives
''HoW important are the discoveries made by
Lieut.. Greely?"
''From point of view on arctic geography
they are OF first class importance. Lieut.. Greedy
has not only taken away from Commander Mark
ham, of the British navy the blue ribbon on
arctic discovery for the highest latitude ever at
tanned in any part of the world, but hs has
greatly extended the limits of Mares explorations
both in Greenland and Grinnell Land and has
given a severe blow to Captain Mares Palace
crystic ce'' and the theories which the latter
founded upon it. The fact
that two of Greelys Shedding parties stop
ped by open winter in the polar basin, and that
both at times adrft strong currents
which threatened to carry them helplessy away
northward, would seem to show the polar basin
is not the solid sea of ancient immovable ice
which Mares describes, and which he declared
was 'never navigable.n Lieut.. Greely's explo-
rations extended 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
ten degrees of longitude beyond the farthest
point reached by Captain Mares and the accom-
plished sIedgng officer. Lie1t. Beaumont
These achievements reflect the highest credit upon
| Greedy 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
i'm portance to any furnished by the circle Of in
ternationa polar stations.