, 1885-04-28
m TAs FaieIp R
A Survivor Of tho Greedy expedition
interesting Incidents
rq.~- Er-u.t.no 4ftn

interesting Incidents
lsan francisco Altal
Sergt Maurice Connell, of the Third
United States cavalry, and a survivor
of the Lieut.. Greedy expedition, is in
San Francisco, having arrived recently
from Washington. He said, in the
course of a conversation with a reporter:
I've been in service in Arizona under
Gen. Cook, the celebrated Indian
warrior, and was also with him in his
campaigns in Wyoming, Montana and
Nebraska Volunteers were called for
men who had been on the frontier or
in the army and were Injured TO hard
ships-and in April, 1881, | joined the
Arctic exploring expedition under Lieut..
Greedy"
Cannot you tell me any interesting
incidents of your northern expedition"
well, the history Of the expedition
has been very fully published and
commented upon in all Of the leading
news journals, and you, of course, do
not wish for any repetitions. Still. I'll
try to give you some of my personal i'm
pressions, which may, perhaps, be
worthy Of publication.
81 was greatly surprised at the ice
north of the eighty-first parallel, where
it is from fifty TO eighty feet in thick
ness. II is called for this reason, and
because of its wide extent, the ancient
frozen sea. North Of the eighty-ffth
parallel it is supposed that the ice never
breaks, but remains always frozen. Be
tween the eighty-first and eighty-second
parallels we were plentifully supplied
with game.
There were musk oxen, ptarmigan,
Arctic foxes, and wild ducks and geese.
The musk oxen never leave that section
of the country, but tho darkness pre-
vents them from being hunted in win
ter. They have been seen, however, so
early as the 9Gth of April, and so late as
the list of November. IL is claimed by
some writers that these oxen always fol-
low the direction of the receding sun,
but my observation is that the presence
Of an immense glacier makes
hat impossible. The musk oxen
weigh less than 200 pounds in
April, but increase in weight
to 400 pounds in July. The Sibe-
rian wolves, that seldom If ever attack
man, follow the oxen in the heaviest
SHOWS, ham string and feed upon them.
We used to hunt and kill the musk oxen
during the summer, and then skin and
preserve them. We ascertained that by
skinning them Immediately after killing
the flesh was relieved of a disagreeable
sweet and musky flavor which otherwise
distinguished it. The ptarmigan is APP
parently a species Of prairie hen. The
color of the male is always white, but
the female, in summer changes its
plumage from white TO brown. The
ducks and geesa of this region are
always flying north during the summer,
in search of continual daylight, | pre-
sumo, or else n quiet locality in which
to breed, but after Aug. 10, they begin
to return TO the south.
THE ploasantest chapter in our Arctic
experience was the two years life at
Fort Conger. 1t was cold, though, the
mean temperature being 5 degrees be-
low zero, the minimum " degrees be-
low, and the maximum 80 degrees above
zero. But we built ourselves a house
and had an ample stock of provisions.
We also discovered, only six miles dis
tant, a mine, out of which could be
knocked a ton of coal with a single blow
OF the pick, SO that by loading the coal
upon our sledges and hauling it over
the ice to camp, we experienced no diff
iiculty in keeping warm. About 100
miles northwest Of Fort Conger / saw an
open river running out of Lake Hazen.
The head of the river was open for a
distance of about three miles, although
for three consecutive months 80 degrees
Glow zero was the moan temperature.
The river was open in April, with indi-
cations that it had been so all through
tho winter
81 suppose you suffered much from
cold while ont on the exploring
sledgesln
Very true, can tell you of many
excursions when, with the thermometer
| degrees below zero, I've slept between
W buffalo skins upon the ice. 1t Is
customary when returning TO camp
from a sledging excursion for a man i'm
mediately TO take oG his socks and put
them into his breast to warm, while he
puts on a dry pair. We used a dried
meat called pemmican, a pound OF
which contains as much nutriment as
five pounds of fresh meat. Hardtack
and tea are its usual accomplishments.
Every sledge also has to carry a pick
and shovel, a hat het or an ak, a sleep
ing-sack, and an alcohol lamp, which is
used in melting the leo to obtain water,
etc The average weight of the sledgo
and its contents is not less than 300
pounds, which the explorer is compelled
to draw himself over the ice, and in the
face of the snow, often laboring Sc
verely, and advancing but a few miles
in a day, when the elements conspire
against him. The darkness, the sense
II isolation and the wide waste of snow
and ice are but too we'll calculated to
make n man lonely and detected.