Evening Star Newspaper, October 14, 1924, Page 4

TI JZVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, 1924, ———————————-—————————_————"_———————'——'—————“—“_ BODIES OF ARCTIC EXPLORERS FOUND ABOUT 1 Continued from Tirst Page ber, ufeovered the pitiful remai Herald Island, September 19, last. Reliex Identify Members. v corroded rifle, pem- micart, ammunition, x sled and other camp equipment, cstablished beyond coubt the identity of the men we found. Other partics have passed since they died 10 years ago. Other Wrangell explorers have died. Winds #nd polar bears have tumbled their 15 about. A few more vears and would have been nothing to tell became of them Lane always believed the Mack ty might have Teached Herild Tsland, so, when driven by foul weather, we found ourselves the shelter of its high, slate cliff from Wranzel, he bedd the nest himself to scan the shore camp lared the vd to take us ashe making and impeded what. but we reached 1 B of ground ciukes near and from them our way to the beach It was one of our few days of sun- hine and becalni Gravelly beach was coverad with thin layer of Wown bare in spots, drifted in and crix tracks of foxes and huge hears Revond near the foot the islet's ridg.., could s outlines of of bl titer proved me bone her what row Yine. as we “Th enough.” dec capta the wh tesernded boat Young ice shore miade sesed 1 polar others, Arctic Find Remains of remains of Then v 1 was touched, d Sne 1o riph of the camp, ex found it W wathered up everything and various urt on the sled as we found then . tfirst things we diseove v 300 Winches Pt avel. Its stock was weathered al- t white, but cut into the wood the initials “B. M distinetly silen weres o be The bareel of the wun was thickly corroded with rust and the magazine partly caten away. disclosing the Lrtridies with age and exposure. A loaded rifle cartridge by indicated that death a4 througzh f This was amply contirmed b minutes by the discovers ahole Dackages of cartridges, un ouched s wor nowe \ hones of @ man vond. a bleas The beach we wood and a lar ik ope re- d ana | hed o pulled the what to chin er Tower jaw time uppar wis ently uncove that Jaw was vered, th ntly that of a middle-aged it Exkimos, roam ards from the camp the slope. It was in diso hundreds . of found a fourth juw fairly deep snov was noth- ing to ~how how it cams so far away from camp. It appears to have beon that of an older than any of the others Lelonziug to part of body discovered. but, al- though we scarched everywhere, we unable to find a single skull frozen folds of the decaved tent and sleeping bag were the of & hand, complete «ven to the nails. Why had these men died? This ¢ tion oppres all. 1t wor more insistent as cach ar- vicle wis uncovered Why should men die who had plen fuel. materials for shelter, as well ition with which to procure heach was strewn with and we found several Chinese matches. We lurge and 24 small tins and. in addition 3 stor already mentioned, 23 Winchester automatic. with sev- eril dozen shells for the former and several hundred rounds for the lat- ter, as well as cight_or nine dozen steel-jacketed Gibbs 236 Magnum KN cartridges for which we could find no rifl: were in the ssed us besc bunches of found 1 penumican Wineh amp Amply Sopplie found a supply of volver cartridges, but no them. ollowing is a list of wund in addition to those ennmerate (A B We ches als 38 Win- nus stove Lovett Co. New Yprk). mark pass in a set of sled man: two i disceruible), a pocket vickel case, shaped lirs of tnow gla arness, evidently for a picks. @ pickax head, a hand ax. ankle beit. buckle, ther- mometer. £now shoes. a pair of broken skiis, a dozen small bottles tabloid tew, pocket Knives, one with letter “M” or “X" cut in its handle, but not a scrap of paper. No memorandum boo No diaries or rocord story save the mute evidence we had gathered We searched carefully relies of the dead but hampered by the snow sround apt. Lane heach and slope be ¢ 1 e there might that records or Leen buried, but there was nothing. We noted u depression inside of a slope of loose shale behind the camp, and dug down into it, thinking som: thinz might have been bu but found nothing. There rm or mound, nothing to indic that an attempt had ever been made to erect a_signal of any kind. All we knew was that, surrounded by all the necessities of life, these men had died. 1 asked Capt. Lane to attempt a reconstruction of the tragedy, o far as can be deduced from evidence. Cause of Deaths Unsolved. “I am not sure,” Capt. Lane said, *®low long they may have been on the island before they died. Perhaps a month or two, perhaps not as long. | There were rusted remains of many tin cans, but just Aéw many would be hard to say. The ashes of their fire indicate they were here more than just a few days, at any rate. As to Why they died? He went on, “There are, in my opinion, but four possible causes—one, being killed by polar bears; two, starvation; three, death from disease: four, freezing to death. T am satisfied they were not attacked by polar bears because there was not a single bone found showing tooth marks."” “Had they been killed by bears,” he continued, “it is unlikely that two members of the party would be found 1ying in their beds, as was the case. T don't think they died of disease. for in that case one surely would bave dicd sufficiently in advance of the others to have been buried in weme manneg, But all seem to have com like two <es, a saecha which for were greatly and frozen ordered that refully examined show messages had bones | to the | a silver watch (no identifying ; Nothing to tell their grisly | further | something to | 0-YEAR-OLD CAMP| time. theory the me ble auantity oi camp. Thus | bout | | food still remaining having eliminated three or four pos- | | ErEaEe) . [porlaisat @ Starvation is an hecause of th sible reasons, there still remains only and it appears to me reasonable evidence at one and well supported by with, the plece of open to blizzards northwest and they are the ones that prevail in that section during the Winter months. There is nothing to | show that ordinary precautions were | tuken to prevent’ their tent heing| pwi by even ligh winds. buch less| Arctic blizzards. V- eral large drift logs n which | they could have anchored their tent, but none was used for this purpose. tent was ground ab- from the » legin | stretenesd | solntely on Apparently Frozen to Death They might have arrived at the island in an exhausted condition due {10 the cold and exposure. It is 11ikely that while in bed the blizzard upen them. hpocked the tent! down and continucd lons enough to | fre them to death. The beds were | laid on split poles to keep them off barc ground, and conscquently when the tent was thrown down the wind nd cold had access to them both from tup and bottem. Under such conditions they could kst but a short time, even though protected by their | beddine “1 believe unexpectedly scientists would la recora tell their story feem odd.” the captain went on. should find four lower juws but the camp was on grvel exposed to! the wind ioroll and in 19 yewrs would probably be blown off the beach into the sew. This is also probably the reason. Why we found no cook utensits or pai We gathered together everything we could find. The captain sel aside all the articles which could possibly serve s identification. These were brouzht off to the schooner. Kvery- thing was piled together on (he camp site and covered with slats of slate. fee conditi made it | perutive that we not delay our de- parture. With a la K at the tragic little strip o h o peace- tal under blinket of snow when we found it now S0 trampled A upturned, we bore off heap of relics, boarded the and sailed away Lane fing the reties to Franci aking 4 written report overnment from N Rifle Was McConnell und by Capt 5 of three s sailor from the Karluk to M. MeConn meteorologist the Canadian Arctic expedit of 813-14. MeConnell is a writer lives in New York The Ki Was outitted at the Canadian navy yard at quimalt. British bia, and sailed north in January, 1913, with the largest seien- tific Stafl on board ever carried by any polar exp. The expedition wis divided into twoe section: N procecding along the the other with ihe ntending to go us far north a carrs tien the direct command of | 1u clarge of the was Capt master of they and these died suddenly otherwis eertainly Shulls | s im- our Canadian Kierl 4s o 1t explor: Karl st the Karluk rth of Point drifted westward with the | she was crushed fanuars. was beset in sarrow and pack until nd sunk the follow - Stefansson was 1 the Karluk on her long drift one ashore to secure caribou and a storm coming up in the| i had carried jce and ship ‘a\\a\ to sea. Stefannson never saw the Karluk again. Before the Kar {luk sank Bartlett placed a consider- |avie stock of supplies and equipment | on the ice. After she hud gone down | { he proceeded to transfer the supplies jand ship's company across the ice to ini { He had | mwat Wrangell Island. Four Sent to Make Camp. He first sent out a party consisting | { of the first and s i officers and two ore, with instructions to go to | Wrangel and arrange a camp for the use of the party which was to follow These four men were never scen or heard of again, and it is generally be- lieved that they either perished on the ice or went through and were drowned. | Shortly after the Karluk sank and while the ship's company were still camped on the ice at Shipwreck mp the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Allister Forbes Mackay, and the oceanographer, James Murray, went to Bartlett and asked to have their proportion of the | supplies and equipment set aside for them, stating that they, with two others, had decided to proceed by them- selves to Wrangell and thence to Siberia, and eventually to St. Petersburg. Bartlett and the others tried to dis- suade them. Upon their making statement in writing absolving Bartlett from blame, he allotted to them their share of provisions. They were given supplies for 50 days, with one sled but no dogs. Bartlett says in his book, “The Last |Voyage of the Karluk.” that the doc- tor and his companions did net want any dogs, but Hadley in his narrative published as an appendix to Stefans- | son's endly Arctic,” states that Buartlett answered the doctor's request for dogs, “Not one dog. If you go off {and leave us you play dog yourself.” At any rate, the party, consisting of four men, Dr. Mackay, James Murray, Henri Beauchat and Stanley Morris, set out on February One of the advance parties seni out by Bartlett, returning to Shipwreck Camp, met them on the ice and reported that they (were having a bad time. Two Men Suffering. They were then about 20 miles from | Herald Island. Beauchat was a mile and a half behind, with hands and feet frozen. Morris had cut his hand with a knife and blood poison had set in. Beauchat expressed his sorrow that they had ever left the main party. The articles that were found on Her- ald Island tally with those they are reported to have® had, and there lit- tle doubt that it was they whose bones we found. According to Bartlett, they had a Nome sled, and that the type of sled we folnd. The mate’s party con- sisted of four men, but they bhad three dog sleds, each heavily loaded with provisions. When the main party reached Wrangel, Bartlett pro- cecded across the ice to Siberia, leav- ing instructions with Chief Engineer | Munroe, who was left in charge, to end a party to Herald Island in arch of the mate’s party, but no instructions appear to have been is- |sued with the other party. Or course, the mate’s party was expected to return to Shipwreck camp, whereas the doctor's party in- | |tended crossing to Siberia. Their late mpanions doubtless believed the {doctor and his companions had either |crossed safely or had perished on the ice. At any rate, it is clear that no search was made at Herald Island. If a search had been made the camp would have been found. After read- ing both Bartlett’s and Headley's ac- counts upon his return to Nome, Capt. Lane expressed himself as certain that the camp we found was that of Dr. Mackay and his companions. Allister Forbes Mackay was born in Scotland, and served in the British navy after graduating from the Uni- versity of dinboro. He accom- panied Shackleton to the Antartic. James Murray was an oceanographer of Glasgow, and had also been with Shackleton. He was afterward biologist on the Columbian boundary, and later attained distinclion as a writer on American archeology and ethnology. Henri Beauchat of | but thos. | thropologist. | wna Since the leaders were men of polar experience, Bartlett was justified in allowing them to strike out for them- (Copyright, 1924, 4 States. Canada, Great | selves and since they asked to be Britaln, and Jupan. Al ullowed to go without dogs he was xightaiestrvad.) stified in letting them do so. HELPS IDENTIFICATION. Right 10 Choose Methods. “Bartlett is not to be blamed. | neither are the men themselves. They Are| | ay, was an_anthropolog inexperienced in Arctic travel. Stan- ley morris w n sailor, Stefanssen Positive Bodies method of travel which they were contident would take them not only to Wrangell but to and through Siberia. Many men have been Jost in Arctic traveling b many methods d it is always easy to say after a dy that some other plan would | Leen better. { suys that tinned food ntly in good condition was the camp and 1 concluded knew a Those of Scientists and Sailor. Special Dispateh o The Star NiZW YORK, October 4 Vilhjal- mur Stefanssen, the explorer, when notified by the North American News- | of the finding of the Herald Island, said “When first told that the remaing of [ eound at four men had been found on Herald | from this that the men died from Islandy I assumed that this must | freezing. But in view of the fact the party of First M | that two men. even when nursed by Anderson, S 1 Mate {their companics, died at Wrangell er and amen John b 1 19lund, surrounded by the same food, King., sent by Capt A the possibility of illness is not ruled Lett, Who was in charge in my absence, | gut to make landing on Herald Islana. | opp 4, iles were open water also on the edsc of the movin and supplics but n land when i a cliff there death may stifling. I | narrow e pes ter, id 1 have happen o others W pitehed in the lee men may do in a mis- for shelter from direet i camp was under the chance that have suddenly by have several | from being snowed u | known that to when @ camp v hill, as desird The | i party were pack 1 dogs. hoping to should turn and drive the land, “The seientists Bartlett in Hadley in wer hand seen some 40 or G0 from Herald Island, travelios no ward that island but toward Wrangedl Kuowing this, [ at fiest assumed the the ice nsuinst his mine, o th nite and come as a shock, relatives as to me the defi- reumstantial account will | but 1 hope they will | feel s 1 do, that the certainty after remainx must be those of IFirst Mate | the suspense is on the whole a relief. Anderson’s party. hut on readine care- | Though nearly ten years now, I have fully the whole dispateh | an inclined |been receiving letters from one or an- to agree with Capt. Louis Lane that|other of the relatives, asking pa- the remuins are {hose of our ocean- | thetically if I did not think that the ographer, Jumes Murray., or our an- | had perhaps reached Siberia | Henri Fieu re that they mixht bLe prisoners | geon, ANiSter Forbe 4 or at least whether 1 did not one Of our Stunley | soe s way to search Siberia for M e anthentic eviden to Ciear up the terrible doubt have at least the know where and approximately when and { how four more brave fronticrsmen t their deatn.” el connected i spened. Th MeConnell Surprised at Find. ating “When I left my Winchester carbine apparent hoard the Karluk in September, was , took a heavier weapon unt caribou,” said Burt today, “little did I think would be the means, ten years of ldentifying the bemes of four iy b dea o captain’s party toof Dr. Mackay apprentice at polar w been with Shackletor and had been the th hat it Sir Dou Mawson 5 ter, worth on h 3 who clas Day journey 1o the So Murray gale. which raged for . prevented us from' reach- ~hip and marooned us for days on an island near the coust of Alaska. Meanwhile arluk, locked in the ice with oard. drifted off to her hims our fame with where Macks ence Arct one the men of Frane endship with inexperi- F Beuchat, alt worlk “Later 1 traveled a thousand miles | h to Nome, and, after attempting | | to persuade tha Canadian government to send a r b to Wrangel to take off the < survivors, 1 ac- o or IBOsA B L B A ompanied me trader to the essentially those of IWary. Mo I, where we took off those sur- had arrived at the < of the Karluk who went to tion <01 Tsiund. fetiiold JTRIELL 1924, United States. Great Britain, asked per South Amicrica and Japan. Al rights rescrved ) e Honduran Rebel Beaten. while F MGUCIGALPA toren ni s thus ent Yire, if he had polar e me Honduras, Octobar have inflicted a Shackleton Tat an P tat Coray upon Gen. Juiio Peralta. ods. The e : 1der. who was attempting to ed in r it d | cara border. Traffie pullin sucigalpa they CLUETTPEABODY &CO. Semi-Stiff COLLARS A style that any man will be pleased to wear— new three button ‘WAISTCOATS SHARPER POIN NOTCH COLLARS IN EVIDENCE, TROUSERS STRAIGHT AND IN COMFORTABLE WIDTH. SUITS $25 to $75 One and Two Trousers DISPLAYEDIN EVERY CONCEIVABLE GOOD . 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