EARLY LIFE Of PEARY lOl) 



sent him to Bowdoin. He was graduated there at the head of a class of fifty- 

 one, being in addition the school's prize essayist. His mother, of notable 

 character, exerted a great influence on the development of her son. She went 

 to the college town with him and made him a home where his friends were 

 always welcome. 



At the end of his college career Peary astonished his friends by going 

 out to the little town of Fryeburg in the mountains of Maine, where he became 

 a land surveyor. At 23 he got a place in the coast and geodetic survey at 

 Washington. Thereafter he spent two years patiently making maps. Then 

 suddenly he rented a room and spent several weeks at mysterious studies. 

 When finally he gave up the room he surprised his fellow employes by an- 

 nouncing that he intended taking the examination held by the Navy Depart- 

 ment for the admission of engineers. When the records of that test were 

 compared it was found that out of the forty who took it, Peary was the 

 youngest of the four who passed. 



In the very first year of his naval service he was ordered to make a report 

 on plans for a new pier for Key West, Fla. Contractors had given up this 

 pier as impossible of construction at the figure set by the government. Peary 

 reported that the pier not only could be built, but that it could be built for at 

 least $25,000 less than the government estimate. 



The Secretary of the Navy ordered Peary to build the pier himself. When 

 the pier was finished it was found that he had saved the Navy Department 

 $30,000. 



In 1885 an incident occurred which started him on his first expedition 

 northward. 



"One evening," he writes, "in an old bookstore of Washington I came 

 upon a fugitive paper on the inland ice of Iceland. A chord, which, as a boy, 

 had vibrated intensely in me at the reading of Kane's wonderful book, was 

 touched again. I read all I could on the subject and felt that 1 m.ust see for 

 myself what the truth was of this mysterious interior." 



No record of the life of Commander Robert E. Peary could be complete 

 which did not include an account of the loyal part his wife played in it. 



Mrs. Peary is possessed to a marked degree of some of the characteristics 

 of her husband. By virtue of native ability, persistence and remarkable cour- 

 age she has carved for herself a place in the history of polar exploration un- 

 equalled by any woman in the world. 



Mrs. Peary, whose maiden name was Josephine Diebitsch, was born and 



