George Washington De Long was a United States Navy officer and explorer who led the ill-fated Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881, in search of the Open Polar Sea.
De Long before 1879
The Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881, officially called the U.S. Arctic Expedition, was an attempt led by George W. De Long to reach the North Pole by pioneering a route from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait. The premise was that a temperate current, the Kuro Siwo, flowed northwards into the strait, providing a gateway to the hypothesized Open Polar Sea and thus to the pole.
Jeannette at Le Havre in 1878, prior to her departure for San Francisco in a trip that would see her round Cape Horn
August Petermann
George W. De Long
Pandora, cruising in Smith Sound during one of her Arctic voyages