MELVILLE, GEORGE WALLACE (1841-1912) , Ameri can Arctic explorer and naval engineer, was born in New York city on July 31, 1841, and educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic institute. In 1861 he entered the U.S. navy as third assistant engineer, and served throughout the Civil War. His first venture into Arctic regions was as engineer of the "Tigress" in search of the ill-fated "Polaris." In 1879 he accompanied George W. De Long (q.v.) on his famous polar voyage in the "Jeannette," which reached a higher latitude than any previous Arctic expedition. When the ship was crushed in the ice he was in charge of the only boat-load of men that survived, finding succour on the Lena river after a boat and sledge journey of many hundreds of miles. In the Arctic night he led an expedition soo m. along the north Siberian shore in search of De Long and other surviviors, and recovered the bodies and records of De Long's boat-load. The incredible hardships of the expedition are modestly told in Melville's In the Lena Delta (1884). Melville was again chief engineer of the flagship "Thetis" in the historic Greely relief expedition of In 1887 he was made engineer-in-chief of the U.S. navy, from
which position he retired in 1903, having been commissioned rear admiral in 1899. His ability as head engineer during a period when a new and more modern navy was being constructed made his services of much importance. He designed the machinery of 120 naval ships of over 700,000 h.p., three of them, the "San Francisco," "Columbia" and "Minneapolis" being for a time the fastest ships afloat. He introduced the triple screw, made the departure from horizontal to the more efficient vertical boilers, and introduced boilers of the water-tube type. He carried out tests of oil fuel and predicted its future importance. Many minor im provements and a general reform of the entire naval engineering department are attributed to him. He died on March 17, 1912.