Wrangell Land, passed to the south, proved to be not a continent but a small island. No other land was seen for a monotonous twenty months, and then, in May, 1881, the ship drifted, stern first, past that sighted by Hedenström from New Siberia, which was found to consist of two islands, to be henceforth known as Jeannette and Henrietta. On the 12th of June, in latitude 77° 14´ 57˝, the _Jeannette_ was crushed and sank, her fore yardarms breaking upwards as she slipped down through the rift in the pack, and a start was made for the Siberian Islands over the ice; but the drift had taken the party to 77° 36´, before they got on their proper course, and after a most laborious journey, lasting up to the 28th of July, they were safe ashore on the land sighted by Sannikof from Thaddeus, which De Long named Bennett Island. Bennett Island was left on the 7th of August, the party of thirty-three being in three boats, thirteen under De Long in the first cutter, ten under Lieutenant Chipp in the much smaller second cutter, and ten, under Engineer George W. Melville, whose skill and resourcefulness had been conspicuous throughout, were given the whale-boat, the most suitable of the three. Sail was made for Thaddeus Island, which was reached in safety; after a halt of some days it was left on the 31st of August. Then Kotelnoi Island was reached and rested at; then the boats made for Semonovski, which was left on the 12th of September. The same day a gale came on in which the first cutter had great difficulty in keeping afloat, the second cutter disappeared never to be heard of again, and the whale-boat, behaving excellently, went off before the wind straight for the continent to reach in safety one of the eastern mouths of the Lena, up which Melville arrived at a Russian village on the 26th of September. De Long's party ran their boat aground in shallow water, on the 17th of September, and rafted and waded ashore to one of the most inhospitable spots on the globe. Heavily laden they made their way down the dreary delta, toiling through the snow, delayed by the tributaries which were not frozen over hard enough to bear, hampered by sickness and disablement, and finally dying one by one of starvation.