expedition, however, had a most important
bearing upon my own. As De Long himself says in a letter to James
Gordon Bennett, who supplied the funds for the expedition, he was
of opinion that there were three routes to choose from--Smith Sound,
the east coast of Greenland, or Bering Strait; but he put most faith
in the last, and this was ultimately selected. His main reason for
this choice was his belief in a Japanese current running north through
Bering Strait and onward along the east coast of Wrangel Land, which
was believed to extend far to the north. It was urged that the warm
water of this current would open a way along that coast, possibly
up to the Pole. The experience of whalers showed that whenever their
vessels were set fast in the ice here they drifted northwards; hence it
was concluded that the current generally set in that direction. "This
will help explorers," says De Long, "to reach high latitudes, but at
the same time will make it more difficult for them to come back." The
truth of these words he himself was to learn by bitter experience.

The Jeannette stuck fast in the ice on September 6th, 1879, in 71 deg.
35' north latitude and 175 deg. 6' east longitude, southeast of Wrangel
Land--which, however, proved to be a small island--and drifted with
the ice in a west-northwesterly direction for two years, when it
foundered, June 12th, 1881, north of the New Siberian Islands, in 77 deg.
15' north latitude and 154 deg. 59' east longitude.

Everywhere, then, has the ice stopped the progress of mankind
towards the north. In two cases only have ice-bound vessels drifted
in a northerly direction--in the case of the Tegethoff and the
Jeannette--while most of the others have been carried away from their
goal by masses of ice drifting southward.

On reading the history of Arctic explorations, it early occurred to
me that it would be very difficult to wrest the secrets from these
unknown regions of ice by adopting the routes and the methods hitherto
employed. But where did the proper route lie?

It was in the autumn of 1884 that I happened to see an article by
Professor Mohn in the Norwegian Morgenblad, in which it was stated that
sundry articles which must have come from the Jeannette had been found
on the southwest coast of Greenland. He conjectured that they must have
drifted on a floe right across the Polar Sea. It immediately occurred
to me that here lay the route ready to hand. If a floe could drift
right ac