284 GREENLAND 



sledging began only twenty teams of six each were 

 available. The plan of the northern advance over the 

 ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles 

 each, with snow houses at each station, the nearest 

 station being supplied from the base and supplying the 

 next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line of 

 communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole, 

 the sledges working backwards and forwards, outwards 

 laden and inwards empty, between station and station 

 along the line. 



The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape 

 Joseph Henry. At 84 38' a lead in the pack stopped 

 the way for six days until the young ice was thick enough 

 to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard 

 drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for 

 another six days. On the 20th of April a region of 

 much open water was reached, and from midnight to 

 noon next day the last effort was made by Peary, 

 Henson, and a small party of Eskimos, the farthest 

 north, 87 6', being attained and immediately left in a 

 rapid retreat for safety. 



Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by 

 thirty-two minutes or thirty- seven statute miles, both 

 being stopped by water with apparently similar condi- 

 tions ahead of them. What the conditions may be 

 along the intervening two hundred miles from Peary's 

 furthest nobody knows ; but although a good many 

 things may happen between London and York, which 

 is about the same distance, there is good reason for 

 supposing that, even if there be land somewhere, the 

 road is over a sea more or less packed with ice which 

 is never without its channels. 



