[George Wallace]. American naval engineer, born in New York City, on the 10th of January 1841; educated in his native city and entered the United States navy as third assistant engineer, with the rank of midshipman, in July 1861. He passed through all the intermediate grades to that of engineer-in-chief of the United States navy, with the rank of commodore, which he attained in 1887. During the Civil War he volunteered for many desperate services. He was engineer of the Jeannette, which sailed on July 8, 1879, under the command of Lieutenant George W. De Long, on a polar expedition. Melville accompanied De Long over the ice to Bennett Island, after the sinking of the Jeannette, in June 1881, and after the division of the party he commanded one of the Jeannette’s boats, which reached the mouth of the Lena River in September of that year. Melville afterward discovered the remains of De Long and his eleven companions. In his position as engineer-in-chief he contributed largely to the building up of the new United States navy, the most remarkable of his designs being that of the triple-screw machinery for some of the swift cruisers. Besides this, he developed a plan for increasing the speed of ships by lengthening their smokestacks. He was the author of Delta, an account of the voyage of the Jeannette.
