8 THE NORTH POLE 



ward to the northern coast of Greenland as I had done 

 in 1906. This change was made for excellent reasons, 

 which will be made clear in their proper place. Upon 

 this record there is only one shadow — a tragic one 

 indeed. I refer, of course, to the lamentable death 

 of Prof. Ross G. Marvin, who was drowned on April 

 10, four days after the Pole had been reached, forty- 

 five miles north of Cape Columbia, while returning 

 from 86° 38' north, in command of one of the support- 

 ing parties. With this sad exception, the history 

 of the expedition is flawless. We returned as we 

 went, in our own ship, battered but unharmed, in 

 excellent health and with a record of complete 

 success. 



There is a lesson in all this — a lesson so obvious 

 that it is perhaps superfluous to point it out. The 

 plan, so carefully made and executed with such faith- 

 fulness to detail, was composed of a number of elements, 

 the absence of any one of which might have been fatal 

 to success. We could scarcely have succeeded with- 

 out the help of our faithful Eskimos; nor even with 

 them, had it not been for our knowledge of their 

 capacities for work and endurance, and for the confi- 

 dence which years of acquaintance had taught them 

 to repose in me. We could certainly not have suc- 

 ceeded without the Eskimo dogs which furnished the 

 traction power for our sledges, and so enabled us to 

 carry our supplies where no other power on earth 

 could have moved them with the requisite speed and 

 certainty. It may be that we could not have suc- 

 ceeded without the improved form of sledge which I 

 was able to construct and which, combining in its 



