The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1923-11-30
CAPTAINS OF
ADVENTURE
by rrM
By ROGER POCOCK

til only few were left.
The world had not been laid out
correctly, but Boring held with fer
vor to his faith in that official chart
for which his men were dying. At last
Tschirikoff, unable to bear " any long
er, deserted Boring, and sailing east
ward many days, came at last to land
at the mouth of Cross straity in south
ern Alaska.
Beyond rocky foreshore and white
surf, forests of pine went up to noun
tains lost in trailing clouds. Behind
a little point rose Aim of smoke from
some savage camp fire. 1'schirikoff
landed boats crew in search Of pro-
visions and water, which vanished be-
hind the point and was seeh no more.
Heart-sick, he sent a second boat,
which vanished behind the point and
YVES seen no more, but the fire of the
savages blazed high. Two days he
waited, watching that pillar of smoke,
and listened to far-Off muttering of
drums, then with the despairing rem
nant of his crew. turned back to the
lesser perils of the sea, and fed to
Siberia. Farther to the northward,
some three hundred miles, vas Boring
In the Stv Petr, driving his mutinous
people in a last search for land. 1t
was the day after TschirikofTs discov-
cry, and the ship, flying winged out
before the southwest wind came to
green shadows of the sea, md fogs
that lay In violet gloom ahead, like
some mysterious coast crowned with
white cloud heights towering up the
sky. At sunset, when these clouds had
changed to flame color, they parted,
suddenly revealing high above the
mastheads the most tremendous noun
tain in the world. The saile.l were
terrified, and Boring, called suddenly
to the tall after-castle OF the ship, went
down on his knees in awestruck won
der. BY the Russian caller dar, the
day was that of the dread Elijah, who
had been taken up from the earth
drawn by winged horses Of flame in
chariot of fire, and to these lost
mariners 1t seemed that this was no
mere mountain of ice walls glowing
rose and azure through a rift of the
purple clouds, but vision Of the trans
lation of the prophet. Boring named
the mountain Saint Elias.
There is no space here for the de-
tail of Behring'S wanderings thereafter
through those bewildering labyrinths
of islands which skirt the range of
| Saint Elias westward. and reach out
as the Aleutian archipelago nearly the
whole way across the Pacific ocean.
| The region is an awful sub-arctic will
derness of rock-set gaps between bleak
arctic islands crowned by flaming VOL
canoes, lost in eternal fog. 1t has been
my fate to see the wonders and the
| terrors of that coast, which Bering's
| seamen mistook for the veStibule OF
the Internal regions. Scurvy and hun
ger made them more like ghosts of
the condemned than living men, until
their nightmare voyage ended in wreck
on the last of the islands, within two
hundred miles of the Siberian coast
Stellar, the German naturalist, who
survived the winter, has left record
of Boring laid between two rocks for
shelter, where the sand drift covered
his legs and kept him warm through
the last days, then made him a grave
afterward. The island was frequented
by sea-cows, creatures until then un
known, and since wholly extinct, Stel
lars being the only account of them
| There were thousands of sea otter
another species that will soon become
extinct, and the shipwrecked men had
plenty of wild meat to feed on while
they passed the winter building from
the timbers of the wreck boat Il
carry them home. In the spring the,
sailed with load Of sea-Otter skins
and gained the Chinese coast, where
their cargo fetched fortune for al
hands, the furs being valued for thu
official robes of mandarins.
At the news of this new trade III
sea-otter skins the hunters of Siberi;
went wild with excitement so that thu
survivors of Behring'S crew led expedi
colony was founded and though thu
Straits of Anian were never discOv
cred because they did not exist, thu
czars added to their dominions new
empire called Russian America. Thi!
Alaska was sold In 1867 to the United
States for seven million. five hundred
thousand dollars, and the territor!
yields more than that by far in annua
profits from fisheries, timber and gold
; All Situations Covered.
A story always worth telling at
gathering of lawyers illustrates tn,