N-M Chapter 371 Voyage Diary
Chapter 371 Voyage Diary
Chapter 371 Voyage Diary
Liang En got up early the next morning from his sleeping bag. To be honest, the feeling of sleeping here for one night was much better than he imagined.
I have to say that the location of the camp chosen by the expedition team back then was really good. Although the whole place was only 60 meters away from the sea, because it was surrounded by a semi-enclosed structure formed by several hills, it did not feel much cold wind and humidity. breath.
After a simple wash, everyone quickly started a new round of work. In one morning, they successfully dug out the other six gravel piles.
However, unlike the imagination, not all the remains of the victims were under these rubble piles, and four of them were filled with relatively well-preserved wooden boxes.
These wooden boxes are in the shape of a cuboid with a volume of about 1m. The outer panels look very thick and have been reinforced with metal strips. After opening the wooden boxes, everyone found some guns, books, daily necessities and silver coins inside.
Obviously, when the remnants of the expedition team came here, they also found that the environment was worse than they imagined, so they streamlined some temporarily unused things and put them here, planning to come back to pick them up when they have time.
However, the subsequent history is well known. The survivors of this expedition obviously failed to escape. They disappeared mysteriously and became a mystery in history until Liang En and the others came here.
After excavating the landslide site, they found more things: all kinds of daily necessities were scattered throughout the area, and there were even many human bones mixed in.
"It seems that they only had time to bury a very small number of their companions." As things were dug out from the landslide site, Liang En also made new discoveries.
"Those expedition members discarded a lot of items, including some necessities for field trips in the cold season. From this point of view, the group of people was already very weak when they landed."
The reason for making such a judgment is that during the excavation process they unearthed the remains of a lot of fur clothing and several cans of kerosene that are almost leaking now but should have been filled back then.
You know, if you want to travel in the wild in cold weather, all kinds of warm items are absolutely necessary, otherwise the long-term low temperature is enough to kill people.
And if these are discarded, it can only show that the situation has reached an extreme crisis point, so that this method must be adopted to reduce all burdens, just to be able to live for a while.
Because the area of the landslide is quite large, Liang En and the others decided to conduct sampling instead of full-scale excavation. Therefore, at one or two o'clock in the afternoon, they completed the scheduled plan and began to excavate the largest rock pile this time.
As the stones were cleared away bit by bit, the contents inside were gradually exposed. Unlike imagined, this was not a cemetery, but looked like a garbage dump.
"Empty cans, empty cans—still empty cans." The stone pile was not high, not even reaching a person's waist, so everyone quickly cleared the surface stones, only to find that the bottom layer was full of empty cans box.
These cans are not the usual small cans, but large tin cans that look like small wine barrels. One can can deliver meals to ten people. They are mainly used by the army or similar collectives, such as this expedition.
"Wait—" Just as another can was delivered, Liang En quickly stopped the worker above, and then climbed up the half-removed stone pile by himself.
After standing firmly on the top, he bent down and carefully cleaned out some empty cans and gravel below, and then walked down from the stone pile with what looked like a tree stump.
"Is this a can?" Looking at the thing Liang En put on the plastic sheet, Scudder asked with some uncertainty after looking at it for a long time.This is something that looks about the size of a milk powder can, and is covered with a thick layer of dark brown objects.
"Yes, this is an empty can with a layer of wax on it, and it seems to contain something." Liang En said, who had just hugged the thing on the plastic sheet.
Because the local temperature has always been very low, the layer of wax wrapped around the can has also remained intact, but it has turned into an ugly brown due to oxidation.
At the same time, when Liang En was carrying the can just now, he felt that there was something inside the can, but judging from the weight and feel of the can, the content in the can was a bit heavy, but it should not be metal.
After discovering this container that was likely to contain certain information, everyone immediately became excited. All the people present were people who knew about this aspect, so naturally they knew the significance of the discovered sealed container.
So before the sun set, Liang En and the others left a few people to complete the finishing work on the spot and returned to the ship by helicopter.
Soon, they came to a small archaeological laboratory below the waterline, and then stuffed the can into a transparent plastic box filled with nitrogen and started the canning work.
The first step of opening the can was done by Fan Meng, mainly because he was worried that there might be some explosives inside, and among so many people, only Fan Meng had received training on explosives disposal.
Fortunately, everything went well, and there were no dangerous items in the jar. After confirming this, Fan Meng, who was wearing a body armor, quickly retreated to the back, and Liang En completed the next work.
The jar looks quite big on the outside, but there are not many things inside, only a book and a folded paper. Thanks to the local low temperature and the sealing work done before, these fragile organic substances are preserved very well.
The entire notebook and the report are no different from new ones except for a slight yellowing due to the passage of time, and the blackened ink on it is also very clear.
For a moment, the whole room fell into silence, only the sound of Liang En turning the pages of the book and the occasional sound of the camera turned on by the reporter could be heard.
"This is the sailing diary of the Nether, which records the whole journey from the departure of the expedition ship to the time when the ship was trapped on the ice, and they were forced to choose to go south from the ice to try to escape."
More than half an hour later, Liang En broke the silence in the cabin and told the contents of the record. Judging from the record, this is a sad story.
From the records, the fleet set off from London in May 1845 and arrived in Baffin Bay at the end of July of the same year. Because of good luck, the expedition team found a large ice-free area there and even sailed north. Travel to 5 degrees north latitude.
After returning to the original trajectory, they inspected the land coastline along the way. After obtaining these results, they disembarked as planned and set up camp on Beech Island, southwest of Devon Island, to prepare for the winter.
Unfortunately, the 20-year-old Torrington, the 25-year-old Hanel and the equally young and strong 33-year-old William Sireny failed to survive the first winter of the expedition and were buried forever on Beach Island.
"I think it's best to call Nelson now and tell him what's on Beach Island." After reading this, Liang En turned around and said to the others. "At least it can save him some energy in finding things."
(End of this chapter)