However, better luck was in store; for Captain Kellett's discovery was afterwards completed by the _Corwin_. I now purpose to narrate a few circumstances attending this first landing on Wrangel island, which may be best told by further reference to Herald island. Captain Kellett, the only person known to have landed at the latter place previously to this account, reports that the extent he had to walk over was not more than thirty feet, from which space he scrambled up a short distance; that with the time he could spare and his materials "the island was perfectly inaccessible." He expresses great disappointment, as from its summit much could have been seen, and all doubts set aside regarding the land he supposed he saw to westward. An extract from one of Captain De Long's letters, making known his intention to retreat upon the Siberian settlements in the event of disaster to the _Jeannette_, says, in reference to a ship's being sent to obtain intelligence of him: "If the ship comes up merely for tidings of us let her look for them on the east side of Kellett land and on Herald island." Being in a measure guided by this information, the _Corwin_ made the forementioned places objective points in the search. It was not, however, till after the coal bunkers were replenished with bituminous coal from a seam in the cliff above Cape Lisburne, that an effort was made to reach the island. During the run westward--a distance of 245 miles--the fine weather enabled us to witness some curious freaks of refraction and other odd phenomena for which the high latitudes are so remarkable. On July 30, the fine weather continuing, everybody was correspondingly elate and merry when both Herald and Wrangel islands were sighted from the "cro'-nest" and, as they were neared, apparently free from ice. This illusion, however, was soon dispelled. On approaching the land strong tide rips were encountered, and finally the ice, the drift of which was shown by the drop of a lead-line to be west-northwest. We steamed through about fifteen miles of this ice before being stopped, less than half a mile from the southeast end of the island by the fixed ice, to which the ship was secured with a kedge. We got off, and after considerable climbing and scrambling up and down immense hummocks, and jumping a number of crevices, finally set foot on the land we had been so long trying to reach. Our advent created a great commotion among the myriads of birds that frequent the ledges and cliffs, and the intrusion caused them to whirl about in a motley cloud and scream at each other in ceaseless uproar. A few minutes sufficed to survey the situation, before attempting to ascend at a spot that seemed scarcely to afford footing for a goat. Near the foot of the cliffs were seen on the one hand several detached pinnacles of sombre-looking weather-worn granite that had withstood the vigor of many Arctic winters; on the other hand a