INTRODUCTION 



across the Polar Sea by Rear-Admiral Peary in 

 1906. 



2. To search for other lands in the unexplored region 



west and southwest of Axel Heiberg Land, and 

 north of Parry Islands. 



3. To penetrate into the interior of Greenland at its 



widest part, between the 77th and 78th parallels 

 of north latitude, studying meteorological and 

 glaciological conditions on the summit of the great 

 ice-cap. 



4. To study the geology, geography, glaciology, meteor- 



ology, terrestrial magnetism, electrical phenomena, 

 seismology, zoology (both vertebrate and inverte- 

 brate), botany, oceanography, ethnology, and arche- 

 ology throughout the extensive region which is to 

 be traversed, all of it lying above the 77th parallel. 

 The great unexplored sector of the Polar Sea may be 

 reached by a selection of one of the following routes: 

 (1) Bering Strait; (2) Lancaster Sound; (3) Jones 

 Sound; (4) Smith Sound and Flagler Bay. 



The first offered many inducements, the chief of which 

 was the proximity of the edge of the unknown sector 

 to the western shores of Prince Patrick Island; an 

 economy of many weary miles of sledge-work on the 

 Polar Sea. Ice conditions, however, along the northern 

 shores of Alaska and in the Beaufort Sea all militate 

 against the safe arrival of a ship at headquarters, and 

 most certainly against her return in the same season, 

 as was planned. 



Lancaster and Jones Sounds may be perfectly practi- 

 cable one year and utterly impossible the next; there- 

 fore both were eliminated in favor of the Smith Sound 

 route. 



