356 GREELY'S ARCTIC WINTER OF STARVATION 



men and five sledges. Advantage was taken of the experience of 

 the members of the Nares expedition, and in laying the plans for 

 this trip provision was made for a series of food deposits and relief 

 parties along the route. This is the method that has generally been 

 since pursued and has proved of great advantage. 



Some of these food caches had been made before the party set 

 out, while the last was placed when in sight of Cape Britannia, the 

 northwest extremity of Greenland. At this point the party divided, 

 three continuing the journey while the others were sent back. The 

 three consisted of Lieutenant Lockwood, Sergeant Brainard, and the 

 Eskimo Frederick, one of the dog teams being taken with them. 

 This team saved them an enormous amount of labor by dragging 

 the sledge for them, but even then they found the traveling exceed- 

 ingly difficult. Their sleeping-bags were damp, and consequently 

 they were always compelled to rest in great discomfort. As they 

 approached Cape Brittania the route became more difficult, and 

 their best march was sixteen miles in ten hours. Beyond the cape 

 an island was reached, to which the name of the leader, Lieutenant 

 Lockwood, was given, and the extreme point of which furnished 

 their "farthest north." They had succeeded in reaching the most 

 northerly point that had yet been discovered, not only on the coast 

 of Greenland, but also in the Arctic regions. The latitude recorded 

 was 83 degrees 24 minutes north, being 4 minutes beyond that of 

 the Nares expedition, and thus the honor which for three hundred 

 years had been the boast of the British, that of having attained the 

 nearest point to the North Pole reached by man, was wrested from 

 the British Lion by its cousin, the American Eagle. 



The coast line still showed beyond, and to the most distant 

 point the name of Cape Washington was given. Then the small 

 band turned back, having succeeded in reaching a few miles nearer 

 the pole than Commander Markham, of the Nares party, whose 

 journey, however, was over the frozen sea, whereas the other was 

 along the Greenland and Peary Land coast. 



