on, and they were picked up--not
only the original nineteen who had begun the drift six months earlier, but
one new and helpless passenger, for one of the Esquimau women had given
birth to a child while on the ice.

The next notable Arctic expedition from the United States had its
beginning in journalistic enterprise. Mr. James Gordon Bennett, owner of
the _New York Herald_, who had already manifested his interest in
geographical work by sending Henry M. Stanley to find Livingston in the
heart of the Dark Continent, fitted out the steam yacht "Pandora," which
had already been used in Arctic service, and placed her at the disposal
of Lieutenant DeLong, U.S.N., for an Arctic voyage. The name of the ship
was changed to "Jeannette," and control of the expedition was vested in
the United States Government, though Mr. Bennett's generosity defrayed all
charges. The vessel was manned from the navy, and Engineer Melville,
destined to bear a name great among Arctic men, together with two navy
lieutenants, were assigned to her. The voyage planned was then unique
among American Arctic expeditions, for instead of following the
conventional route north through Baffin's Bay and Smith Sound, the
"Jeannette" sailed from San Francisco and pushed northward through Bering
Sea. In July, 1879, she weighed anchor. Two years after, no word having
been heard of her meanwhile, the inevitable relief expedition was sent
out--the steamer "Rodgers," which after making a gallant dash to a most
northerly point, was caught in the ice-pack and there burned to the
water's edge, her crew, with greatest difficulty, escaping, and reaching
home without one ray of intelligence of DeLong's fate.

That fate was bitter indeed, a trial by cold, starvation, and death, fit
to stand for awesomeness beside Greely's later sorrowful story. From the
very outset evil fortune had attended the "Jeannette." Planning to winter
on Wrangle Land--then thought to be a continent--DeLong caught in the
ice-pack, was carried past its northern end, thus proving it to be an
island, indeed, but making the discovery at heavy cost. Winter in the pack
was attended with severe hardships and grave perils. Under the influence
of the ocean currents and the tides, the ice was continually breaking up
and shifting, and each time the ship was in imminent danger of being
crushed. In his journal DeLong tries to describe the terrifying clamor of
a shifting pack. "I know of no sound on shore that can