stefansson-wrangel-09-30-005-015

- 15 -

Knight had in mind the illness of which he could already then feel the
symptoms. That confirms that what Ada Blackjack has said about his having
been frequently ill after his hard journey across Skeleton River
when he had to swim on his way back. But it that interpretation is opposed by
Knight's own frequently statements reiteration that he thought he had scurvy
and that when he knew he had scurvy he knew also that the scurvy could be cured with raw meat.-
which He would give him thus have no reason for leaving the island in search of
a medicine cure for his illness that disease. Knight himself tells usin his diary that
he felt the scurvy symptoms illness in November (verify) and confided it then to discussed them with Crawford. at the time.
Perhaps that may be an explant a slip of memory in on Knight's diary part
and that he really felt the illness already in September.

When everything in Milton Galle's fragmentary notes has
been deciphered, interpreted and pondered over, we are left with
an intensified feeling of what a pity it is that he did not leave
behind on Wrangell Island at least one of his two apparently almost
duplicate diaries, and what a pity it is that Crawford and Maurer
left nothing. Still, we may well be glad that this was so. It
is only our curiosity that is balked, and we have the satisfaction for recompense the knowledge,
of knowing more, clearly than we could infer made clearer than it could be from through a mere in inference from a mere under-
standing an understanding of arctic conditions, that none of the party was obsessed
with any fear that serious accident or death would meet them between
Wrangell Island andSiberia Alaska Nome. Had the danger been even seriously
considered, certainly duplicates would have been left behind. Had
the danger been considered estimated thought great, the members would have left all their
most valued records behind, both for the safety of the information and to lighten
their loads, for in a desperate situation every pound of burden may count. As
we have said elsewhere, death must have come with the suddenness