PEARY CROSSES GREENLAND 145 



gunshot without alarming the animals, and succeeded in bringing 

 them down, a bull and a cow, and also a yearling calf which ap- 

 peared behind the larger animals. 



Where were their aches and pains now? Lost or forgotten. 

 The animals 'were rapidly skinned, the sirloins and other choice mor- 

 sels cut out, and one of the carcases was shouldered and thrown to 

 the dogs. With howls of delight the pack rushed upon the raw, 

 bloody flesh and fell to with such ravenous appetites that in a short 

 time nothing was left but a heap of bones. Meanwhile Peary and 

 Astrup prepared a savory supper of musk-ox steak, which they ate 

 with a relish which the most sumptuous meal of civilization would 

 not have awakened. 



After this hearty repast a few hours' rest for men and dogs 

 alike became a necessary relaxation. Setting out again in the best 

 of spirits, the summit of the high land was at length reached, and 

 they found themselves on a small plateau, the edge of which des- 

 cended in a cliff four thousand feet sheer down to the sea. Before 

 them was seen a great bay stretching far to the east and northeast. 

 The extremity of Greenland in this direction had been reached! 

 The Atlantic lay before them, bathing the eastern shores of the 

 land they had crossed! 



It was the 4th of July, 1892, and as the only way they could 

 celebrate the natal day of American independence, they named the 

 harbor before them Independence Bay. A great glacier which 

 curved round it and formed its shores, they called Academy glacier, 

 in honor of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, which 

 had financed the expedition. A cairn was built of stones and in it a 

 record was placed by Lieutenant Peary, while the gold-fringed silken 

 banner presented by the Academy, which the explorer had brought 

 with him, was raised upon the cairn, the first banner of any nation 

 to float over the eastern shores of Greenland north of the seventy- 

 sixth parallel of latitude. 



The remainder of our story may soon be told. On July 5th 



10 



