HELL ON ICE By Commander Edward Ellsberg
Sponsored by the New York Herald, the ' Jeannette ' expedi- tion sailed from San Francisco in 1879 on an attempt to reach the North Pole by the Behring Sea. At n° North the ' Jeannette' was crushed in the ice ; one of the three small boats was swamped with all hands, and most of those men who reached the Siberian coast, including the leader de Long, perished from exposure. Of course, practically nothing was known then of the movements of ice-floes, and the charts of the Arctic coasts of America and Siberia were quite inadequate. The per- . sonality of several of the thirty-three niembeis-df the Pafty-WaS not of-the right type and feuds and squabbles harassed Captain de Long from the beginning to the disastrous end of the journey. But the patience and heroism of de Long himself and most of the crew puts the expedition as a whole among the noble failures. Commander Ellsberg has cast the story (Heinemann, I2S. 6d.) in the form of a personal narrative by Engineer-Officer Melville, one of the few survivors. The method is wholly effective, and the author deserves very high-praise for the brilliant use he has made of reports and personal memoranda, as well as of his own imagination and knowledge, in the production of this most authentic-sounding narrative.
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