1914] IN SEARCH OF CROCKER LAND 81 



Our prayer now was for clear, cold weather and good 

 going. It was answered. On the morning of the 22d, 

 the thermometer stood at thirty-one below zero; the air 

 was clear as crystal. Green got a latitude of 81° 52' and 

 a longitude of 103° 32', which agreed almost exactly 

 with our dead-reckoning. To increase our latitude we 

 set a more northerly course on the 23d and 24th, with 

 a variation of 178° westerly. Observations on these two 

 days put us ahead of our dead-reckoning in latitude 82° 

 30', longitude 108° 22', 150 miles due northwest from 

 Cape Thomas Hubbard. We had not only reached the 

 brown spot on the map, but we were thirty miles in- 

 land! You can imagine how earnestly we scanned 

 every foot of that horizon — not a thing in sight, not 

 even our almost constant traveling companion, the 

 mirage. We were convinced that we were in pursuit 

 of a will-o'-the-w^isp, ever receding, ever changing, 

 ever beckoning. 



In June, 1906, Peary stood on the summit of Cape 

 Colgate. His discovery of the new land is announced 

 in Nearest the Pole as follows: 



North stretched the well-known ragged surface of the polar pack, 

 and northwest it was with a thrill that my glasses revealed the faini 

 white summits of a distant land which my Eskimos claimed to have 

 seen as we came along from the last camp. 



A few days later he stood on the summit of Cape 

 Columbia. Quoting again: 



The clear day greatly favored my work In taking a round of 

 angles, and with the glass I could make out apparently a little 

 more distinctly the snow-clad summits of the distant land in the 

 northwest, above the ice horizon. My heart leaped the interven- 

 ing miles of ice as I looked longingly at this land, and in fancy I 



