When help finally came to the camp at Cape Sabine, seven men only were alive.
While these important events were occurring in the vicinity of Greenland, interesting developments were also taking place in that half of the polar area north of Siberia.

When in 1867 an American whaler, Thomas Long, reported new land, Wrangell Land, about 500 miles northwest of Bering Strait, many hailed the discovery as that of the edge of a supposed continent extending from Asia across the Pole to Greenland, for the natives around Bering Strait had long excited explorers by their traditions of an icebound big land beyond the horizon.

Such extravagant claims were made for the new land that Commander De Long, U.S.N., determined to explore it and use it as a base for gaining the Pole.

But his ship, the _Jeannette_, was caught in the ice (September, 1879) and carried right through the place where the new continent was supposed to be.

For nearly two years De Long's party remained helpless prisoners until in June, 1881, the ship was crushed and sank, forcing the men to take refuge on the ice floes in mid ocean, 150 miles from the New Siberian Islands.