stefansson-wrangel-09-32-097v

394 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

Shelagski and Cape North, from some cliffs near the mouth of the
river, it was possible on a clear summer’s day to see snow-covered
mountains at a great distance to the north. But in spite of perse-
vering efforts to reach this land (April, 1824) Wrangel was com-
pelled to turn back unsuccessful. In his narrative of an Expedition
to the Polar Sea (English edit., 1840, p. 348) he writes: “With a
painful feeling of the impossibility of overcoming the obstacles
which nature opposed to us, our last hope vanished of discovering
the land which we yet believed to exist. ... We had done
what duty and honour demanded; further attempts would have been
absolutely hopeless, and I decided to return.”

The first to sight land in this region was Captain Kellett, R.N.,
of H.M.S. Herald, in command of an expedition in search of
Franklin. On 6 August 1849 he landed upon a small island, subse-
quently called Herald Island, of which he took possession in the
name of Queen Victoria. From this island he saw west and north
what he took to be several islands with an extensive land beyond.
These were not visited by him: to the most easterly island was
given the name Plover Island, and the mainland was afterwards
called Kellett Land on the maps. These new discoveries were
taken to be part of that polar continent of whose existence off
Cape Akan Wrangel had heard, and exaggerated ideas as to its
size again became current. In 1855 Commander Rodgers, U.S.N.,
of the Vincennes, landed on Herald Island, but failed to sight
Kellett Land. However, in 1867 the American Captain Thomas
Long sailed along the southern shores of the “land” seen by Kel-
lett, to which Long gave the name Wrangel Land. That same
year, as the season was an exceptionally open one, the place was
also visited by several American whalers, including Captains
Thomas and Williams, who established the fact that “Plover Island”
was merely a headland on the coast of Wrangel Land. Thirteen
years afterwards, a German, Captain Dallman of Hamburg, claimed
to have anticipated Long’s discovery of Wrangel Land by a year,
but after that lapse of time he was unable to produce his log or
any member of his crew to support his claim. Erroneous reports
on the extent of the eastern coast gave fresh support to the false
conception of its size and the importance of the discovery.

One of the visitors in 1869, Captain Bliven, for example, ex-
pressed his opinion that it not improbably extended several hundred