PEARY'S FARTHEST NORTH OF 1905-6 157 



him too great for human power to overcome. To go on was but to 

 sacrifice their lives. The polar monarch had his outposts far 

 advanced to repulse the bold navigator who was seeking to unfold 

 his long hidden mystery, and the feeble force that assailed them was 

 far too weak to break through their serried ranks. Nothing 

 remained but retreat and acknowledgment of defeat. 



As they rested that night in their camp a night in which the 

 sun scarcely set they heard the ice to the north moving and grind- 

 ing with a noise like that of surf beating heavily on a rocky shore. 

 It was the slogan of defiance of the ice king's battalions. The next 

 day they took observations of the sun and found the latitude to be 

 84 degrees 17 minutes 27 seconds, the highest so far reached in 

 that part of the Arctic Sea. Some few photographs were taken, the 

 dogs were given a double ration, a few hours of sleep were taken, 

 and then, with heavy hearts, they turned back upon their track. 



On their homeward path rose obstructions of another sort. 

 Where open water had crossed their outward road they were now 

 confronted with a huge pressure ridge of ice, estimated to be from 

 seventy-five to one hundred feet high. A new road had to be made 

 around this, but soon their old path was struck again, and on they 

 floundered through snow, ice and storm until April 29th, when the 

 shores of Crozier Island rose before them and their journey over the 

 polar pack was at an end. Four more marches took them to Fort 

 Conger. Here they stopped to dry their clothes, repair their sledges 

 and give their dogs the rest they sadly needed, and then set out on 

 their final march for Payer Harbor, which they reached on May I7th. 



With this the four years of hard labor and strenuous effort 

 ended. It ended in defeat, but not wholly defeat. Though the 

 problem of the Pole remained unsolved, though Peary's "farthest 

 north" lay two degrees south of those of Nansen and Abruzzi, he 

 had accomplished much in the way of giving the world new geo- 

 graphical knowledge. He had especially proved the insular char- 

 acter of Greenland and traversed its northern coast practically as 



