“But when pressed”: Ibid.
“We will seek them”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 34.
“incorrigible white trash”: Ibid.
“children listened attentively”: Ibid., 41.
“could still hear his screams”: Ibid., 43.
“raced about in exuberant sport”: Ibid., 49.
“faded in the snowy gloom”: Ibid.
26: DEATH STROKES
“a thing of the past”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:569.
“a howling wilderness”: Ibid., 2:567.
“her cyclopean vise”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 36.
“confusion raging about us”: Ibid., 30.
“like a glass toy”: Ibid., 37.
“the hideous results of forty dogs”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 14.
“vegetables grown in the dark”: Ibid., 15.
“exploded so many theories”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:636.
“a grand success”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 37.
“crucial moment in our voyage”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:554.
“off the launching ways”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 37.
“no injury whatever”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:572.
“she could bathe her sides”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 38.
“strikingly picturesque”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 29.
“cracking in every part”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:574.
“What do you think of it?”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 28.
“stabbed in her vitals”: De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 306.
“like death strokes”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 28.
“jumped from their chucks”: De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 306.
“if I had gone down with my ship”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:623.
“Goodbye, old ship”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 30.
“there she goes!”: Ibid., 31.
“a great, gaunt skeleton”: Ibid., 32.
“embrace of the Arctic monster”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 43.
“any rational hope of aid”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 32.
“long march to the south”: Ibid.
“the melancholy howl”: De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 306.
PART FIVE: THE END OF CREATION
27: ALL MUCKY
“If the Jeannette is still in existence”: New York Times, July 21, 1881.
“cheerless-looking mass”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 106.
“not a soul was left alive”: Ibid., 108.
“All mucky—all gone”: Ibid., 110.
“smiled at the ghastly spectacle”: Ibid., 86.
“picked bare by the crows”: Ibid., 109.
“it was almost impossible”: Calvin Hooper, Report of the Cruise of the U.S. Revenue Steamer Thomas Corwin, 1881, 22.
“piled like fire-wood”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 109.
“as long as the rum lasts”: Calvin Hooper, Report of the Cruise of the U.S. Revenue Steamer Thomas Corwin, 1880, 11.
“most glaring death”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 109.
“every soul of them will have vanished”: Ibid., 111.
“Had they found the Jeannette?”: Calvin Hooper, Report of the Cruise of the U.S. Revenue Steamer Thomas Corwin, 1881, 24.
Herring and his party: Ibid., 24–29.
“a steamer with three masts”: Ibid., 31.
“accounts would have reached us”: Ibid.
28: NIL DESPERANDUM
“vagabond insects”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 43.
“corps of engineers to level”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 48.
“terribly confused”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:602.
“utterly fagged out”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 34.
“a more tired and hungry”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:600.
“singing is going on all around”: Ibid., 2:611.
“with such little complaint”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 39.
“blinks like a drunkard’s eye”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:601.
“We break camp and start”: Ibid., 2:589.
“working for our lives”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 50.
“very seriously disturbed about him”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:605.
“Our outlook”: Ibid., 2:638.
“I shall get along all right”: Ibid., 2:604.
“fish, flesh, and fowl to us”: Ibid., 2:631.
“passed blood freely from bowels”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 193.
“each to his own taste—ah!”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 41.
“consistency of fresh tripe”: Ibid., 38.
“draw a breath without pain”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 196.
“drop me a line”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:605.
“uniformly beyond reproach”: Ibid., 2:641.
“don’t do that again!” Ibid.
“Consider yourself under arrest”: Guttridge, Icebound, 181.
“enough to make one thoughtful”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:606.
“I dodge [them]”: Ibid., 2:611.
“despondent and suspicious”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 41.
“we will never get out”: Guttridge, Icebound, 173.
29: THE PHANTOM CONTINENT
“as if still fighting for life”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 83.
“conducting in a dead Indian”: Ibid., 115.
“idle hours in gambling and quarreling”: Ibid., 82.
“a rush to the new mines ere long”: Ibid., 114.
“the rest to be eaten by wolves”: Ibid., 128.
“curious freaks of refraction”: Rosse, The First Landing, 2.
“smoke from the burning tundra”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 117.
“frost-killed end of creation”: Ibid., 202.
“as a myth”: Rosse, The First Landing, 1.
“a good deal of bumping”: Ibid., 52.
“standing on narrow ledges”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 155.
“ocean stretching indefinitely northward”: Ibid., 154.
“to fix the eye of a mountaineer”: Ibid.
“waste of ice and sea and granite”: Rosse, The First Landing, 3.
“we could not have failed to see it”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 178.
“learn something of this strange visitor”: Calvin Hooper, Report of the Cruise of the U.S. Revenue Steamer Thomas Corwin, 1881, 54.
“stained the blue water with his blood”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 156.
“beset by great masses of ice”: Rosse, The First Landing, 4.
“ground in the ice for a winter or two”: Muir, Cruise of the Corwin, 165.
“in case anybody was near to listen”: Ibid., 167.
“long withdrawing valleys”: Ibid., 221.
“legible to the dullest observer for years”: Ibid., 176.
“the Land of the White Bear”: Ibid., 177.
“The extent of the new territory”: Ibid., 169.
“in the polar climate”: Wrangel would later be claimed by Russia, which controls the uninhabited island today as a highly restricted zapovednik, or federal wilderness preserve, which I visited in the summer of 2012 while researching a story for National Geographic. Because the Corwin party first planted a flag on the island, certain groups in the United States insist Wrangel is rightfully American soil and have lobbied strenuously for the State Department to press its territorial claim in the international courts.
30: A SECOND PROMISED LAND
“attend a funeral at any moment”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:601.
> “limber as a basket”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 55.
“The knots and tangles”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 199.
“Each man had a favorite”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 57.
“rags, bags, and old battered boats”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 43.
“will get himself hurt”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 198.
“Don’t let me see you”: Guttridge, Icebound, 175.
“tackle it again to-morrow”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:668.
“The drag, drag, the slips and jerks”: Ibid., 2:636.
“cheerful and come up smiling”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 202.
“has been thoroughly exploded”: Guttridge, Icebound, 124.
“our well-wishers at home”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:623.
“learn what its application may be”: Ibid.
“A bright vision arose”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 42.
“second Land of Promise”: Ibid.
“straightaway became a Hercules”: Ibid., 43.
“dined at Delmonico’s”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:646.
“tasted very well”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 200.
“The choice parts”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:659.
“not as good as seal stew”: Ibid., 2:660.
“not unlike pig’s feet”: De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 309.
“bullets with good results”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:667.
“roasted his paws”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 42.
“a current in our favor”: Ibid.
“concealed it as long as possible”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 197.
“a tin cup of tea”: Ibid., 200. Some accounts suggest that Dr. Ambler was toasting the birthday of his sister, not his fiancée.
“Island seems to recede”: Ibid., 201.
“I was fairly staggered”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:654.
“we have made another discovery”: Ibid., 2:651.
“powdered by the hand of time”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 43.
“crags of indescribable grandeur”: De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 310.
“enormous swarm of bees”: Ibid.
“hold a Goliath back”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:661.
“the devil to pay”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 202.
“I take possession of it”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:679.
“renewing the electrical connections”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 51.
31: EIGHT PRECIOUS DAYS
“the roar of distant thunder”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 44.
“its awful way toward us”: Ibid.
“lashing it into foam”: De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 313.
“surprised at nothing”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:690.
“I added Bennett Island”: Ibid., 2:679.
“a serious thing for us”: Ibid., 2:690.
“over-cautious person would avoid it”: Melville to Emma De Long, August 27, 1883, Emma De Long Papers.
“dock[s] fallen to decay”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:686.
“like that of young veal”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 55.
“old ones tough, young tender”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 203.
“give all hands all the liberty”: Ibid.
“by what right I dared invade”: De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 313.
“the most extensive breeding ground”: Ibid., 312.
“a narrow shave”: Ibid.
“I must think of human life first”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:691.
“The poor brutes”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 57.
“clad in their winter garb”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 46.
“generally a queer day”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:692.
“everything over the ice”: Ibid., 2:689.
“swimming in the clouds”: Ibid., 2:694.
“the silver glory of the clouds”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 47.
32: THE KNOWN WORLD
“the maze at Hampton Court”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 1:205.
“skeleton pack”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:706.
“Very severe”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 57.
“work for a Titan”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 47.
“very much wasted”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:705.
“like a school of whales”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 57.
“scampered like circus horses”: Ibid., 48.
“Time was too precious”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:699.
“doleful howling”: Ibid.
“led off to execution”: Ibid.
“sense enough to remain by us”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 57.
“until it becomes perilous”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:699.
“angry look”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 209.
“very peculiar mind”: Ibid., 205.
“take it as anything you please”: See Guttridge, Icebound, 186.
“it showed plainly enough”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:713.
“start on our journey afloat”: Ibid., 2:714.
“never been afloat at all”: Ibid., 2:715.
“never get out of the wilderness”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 47.
“make the best of every misfortune”: Ibid., 50.
“seem to be against us”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 205.
“Another lost day”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:717.
“a mere question of provisions”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 50.
“perfectly miserable for want of a smoke”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:719.
“Richard is himself again”: Ibid.
“got considerable comfort”: Ibid., 2:721.
“in such a hell-gate”: Ibid., 2:722.
“seriously sought for eatable game”: Ibid., 2:723.
“waited in wretched discomfort”: Ibid., 2:726.
“What a cold bath!”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 59.
“they are doubled in intensity”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:729.
“an attack of giddiness”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 210.
“no one can tell what may occur”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:741.
“a good dinner was made of them”: Ibid., 2:732.
“chilling me to the bone”: Ibid., 2:736.
“candle-snuffer hills”: Ibid., 2:742.
“Long windrows of driftwood”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 52.
“distant scenes and friends”: Ibid., 56.
“regulation fog”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:741.
“padding shyly about”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 52.
“burrowed his way into the sand”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:737.
“very near being smashed up”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 63.
“would have been death”: De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 318.
“men performed wonders”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 57.
“would certainly engulf us”: Ibid., 58.
“filled her to the thwarts”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 62.
“wet and exhausted creatures”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:743.
“shivering together in a heap”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 59.
“all stand it without complaint”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 208.
“the sleep of the just”: Melvi
lle, In the Lena Delta, 60.
33: SEAS HIGH AND SPITEFUL
“on the warpath”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:745.
“mere strip of earth”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 211.
“almost to a knife-edge”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:745.
“a royal gorge, indeed”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 60.
“jolly good soup on the morrow”: Ibid.
“Our lesser discomforts”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:746.
“stood up splendidly to her work”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 63.
“one of the best fastened boats”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 61.
“considered sound and efficient”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 49.
“not altogether satisfied with the outlook”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 64.
“This record of our arrival”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:747.
“every one jolly”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 61.
“plenty of natives there”: Ibid.
“Don’t wait for me”: Ibid., 62.
“high and spiteful”: Danenhower, Narrative of the “Jeannette,” 66.
“I must run or else I will swamp”: Melville, In the Lena Delta, 64.
PART SIX: THE WHISPER OF THE STARS
34: LUCKY FOURTEEN
“full up to the thwarts”: Navy Department, Loss of the Steamer Jeannette, 175.
“Baling, baling all the time”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 211.
“No sleep for 36 hours”: Ibid.
“a nervous chuckle in his throat”: Ibid.
“No chart had been laid down”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:802. Also see De Long and Newcomb, Our Lost Explorers, 102.
“pretty well played out”: Loss of the Steamer Jeannette, 177.
“washing in the boat”: Ibid., 178.
“most miserable and uncomfortable night”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:753.
“look our situation in the face”: Ibid., 2:754.
“Everybody was badly frozen”: Loss of the Steamer Jeannette, 179.
“Our outlook at this rate”: Ambler, “Private Journal,” 212.
“our chances of getting through seem good”: George De Long, The Voyage of the Jeannette, 2:756.