Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-12-12

ical; chances against its success, owing to
m M rsii cs nawira otefgmh IN IN dnoss resll.Gnsi,
work. There is no safe winter anchorage on
west shore OF Greenland between Disco and
Bay, winter quarters of Saunders. However,
there is Il bure chance of success, and if my
recommendations are approved i am ready
and anxious to make the effort.
Under date of September Ia, 1888, Chief
Engineer George w. Melville, United States
Navy, submitted a proposed method of re-
lief for the Greedy party, which was in sub
stance to use the steamship Yantic, but
there was no suggestion in his proposition
of any hope of getting the Yantic further
north than Cape York. his plan being to
sledge northward from there. Under date
of September IS, 1883, DR.. James Laws,
who was Surgeon in the ..llaltstone flNpcdi-
ton sent out to the relief of DR.. Kane in
1855, strongly urged the utter impractica-
bility, from his experience, of any
expedition, however we'll lifted, being
able to reach a point where It
could be of the slightest service to the Gree
ley party. He said that before an expedi-
ton could reach the shores of Greenland it
would be dangerous to proceed above Disco
Island. Captain George T.. Tyson, who, as
is well known, was With Halls last cxpcdi-
ton. and was in command of the party
which tioated down from the Arctic regions
on an ice foe. offered his services to lead an
expedition, but he made no suggestion to 90
i'll the autumn of 1888. On the contrary, he
expressed, in personal conference, his firm
conviction of the impracticability and dam
ger OF undertaking such an expedition in
the autumn. : * i
The deploraLle situation of the Greedy
party, then feared but since known to exist,
did NOT 1acSa,, itp ,,npi1, xrl,i.l, would l,,1,n
beset amy relief party started at the Begin
ming of an Arctic winter. The Secretary of
Wan knows of no one whose opinion would
be considered, except the Chief Signal
Officer, who would not have regarded such
an expedition not only as substantially hope
less 1or any relief earlier than was actually
given, but perllous i'll the extreme, il not
foolhardy.
Nothing is more illustrative of the inn
possibility OF overcoming at all times the
difficulty of Arctic travel, whether by land
or sea, than the fact that two-thirds of
Lieutenant Grecly's party starved to death
at Cape Sabine with $50 pounds vi meat UNI
touched at Cape Isabella, distant about
thirty miles, and with $50 rations untouched
at Littleton Island, at about the same dis
probably never occurred to any one that the
Greedy party could not easily reach and use
both of these stores.
The conclusion reached, after most
anxious and careful consideration, was, on
the 10Th OF September, 1883, embodied in a
written memorandum of the Secretary of
War and the Secretary of the Navy, which
was given in full in the Secrctary's report.
1t may be added that the Secretary of
War, while deploring the terrible loss of
life incurred by the Lady Franklin Bay en-
petition, has never seen reason to doubt the
propriety of these conclusions reached by
the Secretary Of the Navy and himself,
upon all the considerations which were
available to them.
To some Of the criticisms made by the
Chief Signal Officer in his report no refer
ence seems to be required beyond saying
that the "Proteus'' Court of Inquiry, so
called, had the merit OF basing its conclu-
sions as to the officers with whom it dealt
upon such information of facts and condi-
tons as was attributable by the officers
themselves at the time Of their action,
as well as by the court. But the
expression of the Chief Signal Officer,
above referred to, is AN intrusion of an
official opinion as to the propriety Of the
course OF the Secretaries of War and OF the
Navy in not hazaruing more lives in 1888
in a nearly hopeless adventure, upon his
Geographic request. This excursion into an
official jurisdiction beyond his W and his
dictum upon the exercise of Il superior re-
sponsibility which he was not invited to
share are extraordinary in their time and
place. and are hardly eXcusable even under
whatever OF irritation may have been caused
by the findings Of the 'Proteus'' Court of
Inquiry. Waving, however, that considera-
ton, if there had at the time been given more
weight to the views of that branch Of
the public service, under whose manage
ment there had been one futile and one dis
astrous expedition in the Northern seas in
two successive years. than to the views of
men having experience in such matters, it
is now hardly to be doubted that we would
have had last summer the news OF two
Arctic calamities instead Of one. 1t is not
thought that the public would wish better
evidence of this than is to be found in the
official report Of Commander Schley, which
the Secretary quotes.