In crossing from the island to the Siberian coast the boats encountered a furious gale of wind and were separated. Chipp and his boat’s crew were never heard of again. Melville and Danenhower, however, with their men, landed on one part of the Lena delta, and De Long on another. The latter in vain tried to find their way to a Russian settlement. Provisions failed, and all, save two, perished. Melville and Danenhower were more fortunate, reaching Yakutsk on the 30th December, 1881, and Melville at once organised a search for his lost commander. A relief expedition had meanwhile been fitted out at San Francisco, and in June 1881 the _Rodgers_ sailed under the command of Lieutenant Berry, U.S.N. That intelligent officer made a complete survey and examination of the small Wrangell Island, in sight from Cape Chelagskoi, about which Dr Petermann and others had written so inaccurately. He wintered in St Lawrence Bay, and then made his way to Yakutsk, to join Melville in the search. The bodies of De Long and Ambler were found close to each other on the island of Boren-Bjelkoi; they had died nobly, martyrs to science, and devoted to duty to the last. De Long was a naval officer of promise, and a noble character. He impressed me greatly with his thoroughness. In his last letter to his wife he wrote: “I feel my responsibility, and I hope I appreciate the delicate position I am placed in, of leading and directing so many people of my own age. I hope God will aid me in what I have undertaken, and will bring me through it in safety and with credit.” Mrs De Long resolved to publish the whole of her husband’s copious journals, and she acted wisely, for they form one of the most interesting of Arctic books. She wrote to me--what every reader will endorse--“the journals show so convincingly the zeal, perseverance, and devotion of the leader, that I am anxious that they should have as large a circulation as possible.” De Long’s expedition, though unfortunate, was not without useful results. The history of the drift, so carefully and accurately recorded, is valuable geographically and will always be of assistance to future explorers. CHAPTER XXXVII GREENLAND AND ITS INLAND ICE--NORDENSKIÖLD, NANSEN, PEARY The inland ice of Greenland was for centuries one of the greatest Arctic problems--an entirely unknown area of 750,000 square miles. So little was its formation understood in the first half of the eighteenth century that Governor Claus Paars, Greenland’s first and only governor, took out horses with the idea of riding across it to the supposed lost colony on the east side. He was disabused when he sailed up to the end of the Amaralikfjord, reached the inland ice and, after a march of two hours, was stopped by a crevasse.