Part 17 (1/2)

[Illustration: Noros and Nindermann]

On October 9th the exhausted condition of some of the ress of the party as a whole In this contingency De Long sent Nindermann and Noros ahead for relief, with orders to keep the west bank of the Lena until they reached a settle advanced a mile and caans and the party resorted to their deer-skin clothing for subsistence, but without avail The last entry in De Long's diary, October 30, 1881, records all dead except Collins, as dying, Ah Sam and Dr Ambler, of whom no mention was made

Noros and Nindermann, after a march of one hundred and twentyshelter in one of the vacant huts, they were discovered by a native, who took them to an adjacent encampment The natives either did not understand Nindero northward, for despite his incessant and urgent entreaties they carried the two seamen southward to Bulun, where they arrived on October 29th, and etic officer, exhausting all practicable means, pushed his relief parties northward to the extremity of the Lena Delta, but without success He reached the Arctic Ocean, recovered the log-books, chronometer, and other articles on Noveed hi his efforts, in March, 1882, he discovered, on the 23d of that month, the bodies of his coeneral conduct of the expedition caused the board of officers to express their opinion that the general personnel were entitled to great praise for their solidarity and cheerfulness, their constancy and endurance The zeal, energy, and professional aptitude of Melville were noticed, and special coh qualities displayed by him in the conduct of the expedition

The scientific observations of the Jeannette expedition raphic, ical observations over an extended portion of the earth's surface previously unknown, and it appears surprising that after all these years they re the Bodies]

In addition raphic contributions, covering some fifty thousand square miles of polar ocean, which indicate with equal clearness the character of fifty thousand other square miles of area to the south, and thus prove the Siberian Arctic Ocean to be a shallow sea, dotted with islands

The geographic results are represented in part by the attainhest latitude ever reached in Asiatic seas, and in the discovery of Jeannette, Henrietta, and Bennett Islands Discoveries, however, are both direct and indirect, and to positive results should be added successes of an inferential though negative character Through De Long's northwest drift the long-sought-for Wrangel Land shrank fro, under the Petermann hypothesis, Asia with Greenland, to its reality--a small island

It is to be said that this reduction of Wrangel Land into a little island doo Strait as a proh latitudes; for the arctic canon of Parry yet obtains, that without a sheltering coast no vessel can hope to navigate safely the Polar Ocean

With the raphic problems connected with the vast ice-covered ocean to the north of Siberia will be left unsolved These co, and while profiting by his experiences they will surpass his efforts, yet their successes cannot e and constancy of theallant De Long and his associates in the fateful voyage of the Jeannette

XIII

PAUL BELLONI DU CHAILLU,

DISCOVERER OF THE DWARFS AND GORILLAS

Aorous and adventurous n climes, but who by choice have cast their lot with A citizens of the United States, there are fehose explorations and discoveries have excited more popular interest and discussion than have those of Du Chaillu, the discoverer, in orilla

[Illustration: Paul Belloni Du Chaillu]

Born in Paris, July 31, 1835, the early environments of Paul Belloni Du Chaillu fostered and forecast his taste for African exploration, for his father was one of the adventurous Frenchmen whose consular appointment and commercial enterprises led him to settle at the mouth of the Gaboon, on the west coast of Africa, where his distinguished son passed his boyhood While young Du Chaillu was, doubtless, well grounded in ordinary sciences by his instructors, the learned Jesuit fathers, of Gaboon, yet apart froular educational institutions he i by observation of the rich tropical world around hi tribes acquired a knowledge of native tongues and craft, of savage habits and character, which insured his after-success in African exploration

Coht Du Chaillu to the United States, in 1852, when he was so strongly impressed by American institutions that he became a naturalized citizen of the United States

Du Chaillu was brought pro and interesting articles on the Gaboon country, which frothened his belief in the i certain portions of the west coast of Africa

The region selected for his investigations was under the burning sun of the equator, soo country, in the basins drained by the Muni, Ogowe, and Re to difficulty of access, extre fevers, and deadly climate, were practically unknown Between 1856 and 1859 Du Chaillu journeyed upward of eight thousandon foot, with no white companion, and, with the aid of natives, cursorily explored nearly one hundred thousand squarewith the ardent zeal of a naturalist, his enorated thousands of specimens, and in this collection alone he added some sixty new species of birds to the do the quadrupeds, he discovered no less than twenty new species, and aht were the very re ape, with its unknown and its almost equally extraordinary brother the koo-loo-laorilla were y he accumulated a number of invaluable native arms and implements, which now adorn the British Museus, during these explorations, from semi-starvation, the wild beasts of the dense forests, the venomous reptiles of the river valleys, the attacks of ferocious ants, and other intolerable poisonous insects which infest the interior

There areaccounts of curious quadrupeds in Du Chaillu's book, ”Adventures in Equatorial Africa,” but none appeals orilla Traditions froator of 350 BC, set forth the existence of such an aniorilla, except Andrew Battell, early in the seventeenth century Nearly ten years before the explorations of Du Chaillu the gorilla had been, however, brought to the notice of naturalists by Dr

Savage, of Boston, who had received a skull from the Rev J L Wilson, an American missionary on the Gaboon

From boyhood up Du Chaillu had heard froth, and ferocity of this ape, which is the most dreaded anied for an opportunity to hunt the gorilla, and when he first saw its tracks, which threw his native hunters into alarm, he relates that his sensations were indescribable, his feelings so intense as to be painful, and his heart-throbs so violent that he actually feared the animal would be alarmed by them