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1 Between Plover Bay St Laurence Island 8.45 P.M. July 2d / 881. My beloved wife, After leaving St Michaels on the 22d
June where I last wrote you we went again into the Arctic ocean to Tapkan 12 ms N.W. of Cape Serdge to seek the search party
that we left on the edge of the ice pack opposite Kolinchin Island were so fortunate as to find them there having gone as
far as the condition of the ice seemed to them safe, after they had reached the fountain head of all the stories we had heard
concerning the last whaler vigilance determined them to be in the main true. At Cape Wankarem they found three illegible who
said that last year when the ice was just beginning to grow when the sun did not rise they were out seal hunting three or
four miles from shore when they saw a broken ship in the drift ice wh they boarded found some dead men in the cabin a good
many articles of one sort another wh they took home wh they showed to our party. This evidence reveals the fate of at least
one of the ships we are seeking. Our party when they saw us came out to the edge of the ice, wh extended about 3 miles from
shore, after a good deal of difficulty reached the steamer The north wind was blowing hard sending huge black swells combing
waves against the jagged grinding? edge of the pack? with terrible uproar making it impossible to for us to reach them with
a boat