Produced by A www.pgdp.net Volunteer, Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org)) THE FIRST LANDING ON WRANGEL ISLAND, WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE NORTHERN INHABITANTS. BY IRVING C. ROSSE, M.D. On May 4, 1881, through the courtesy of the Chief of Revenue Marine, Mr. E.W. Clark, I was allowed to take passage from San Francisco, Cal., on board the United States Revenue steamer _Corwin_, whose destination was Alaska and the northwest Arctic ocean. The object of the cruise was, in addition to revenue duty, to ascertain the fate of two missing whalers and, if possible, to communicate with the Arctic exploring yacht _Jeannette_. Our well-found craft made good headway for seven or eight uneventful days of exceptionally fine weather, while the ocean, somewhat deserving the adjective that designates it, displayed its prettiest combinations of blue tints and sunset effects as we steamed through miles of medusidae; and had it not been for the sight of occasional whales and the strange marine birds that characterize a higher latitude, we should scarcely have known of our approach to the north. Soon, however, we were beset by pelting hail and furious storms of snow and all the discomforts of sea life, causing a _penible navigation_ in every sense of the term. On May 15 we were somewhat disoriented while trying to make a landfall in a blinding snowstorm, and groped about for several hours before anchoring under one of the Alp-like cliffs of the Aleutian islands. * * * * * Without going into further details of the cruise, I will state that on the previous year five unsuccessful attempts were made by the _Corwin_ to reach Herald island, and that Wrangel island was approached to within about twenty miles. This "problematical northern land," the existence of which the Russian Admiral Wrangel reported from accounts of Siberian natives, and which he tried unsuccessfully to find; a land that Captain Kellett, of Her Britannic Majesty's ship _Herald_, in 1849, thought he saw, but which, under more favorable circumstances of weather and position, was not seen by the United States ship _Vincennes_; a land, in fact, that from the foregoing statements and from the imperfect accounts of whalemen we had begun to regard as a myth, was actually seen; and I shall never forget the tinge of regret I felt when the necessity of the position obliged the withdrawal of the ship and I took a last lingering look at the ice-bound and unexplored coast, fully realizing at the time the joyous satisfaction that must animate the discoverer and explorer of an unknown land.