38 THE NORTH POLE 



and hunger. These rude rock piles bring home to 

 any thoughtful person the meaning of arctic explora- 

 tion. The men who lie there were not less courageous, 

 not less intelligent, than the members of my own party; 

 they were simply less fortunate. 



Let us look along that highway for a moment and 

 consider these memorials. At North Star Bay are 

 one or two graves of men from the British ship North 

 Star, which wintered there in 1850. Out on the Cary 

 Islands is the nameless grave of one of the ill-fated 

 Kalstenius Expedition. Still farther north, at Etah, 

 is the grave of Sonntag, the astronomer of Hayes's 

 Expedition; and a little above it, that of Ohlsen of 

 Kane's party. On the opposite side are the unmarked 

 places where sixteen of Greely's ill-fated party died. 

 Still farther north, on the eastern or Greenland 

 side, is the grave of Hall, the American commander 

 of the Polaris Expedition. On the western, or Grant 

 Land side, are the graves of two or three sailors of 

 the British Arctic Expedition of 1876. And right on 

 the shore of the central Polar Sea, near Cape Sheri- 

 dan, is the grave of the Dane, Petersen, the interpreter 

 of the British Arctic Expedition of 1876. These 

 graves stand as mute records of former efforts to 

 win the prize, and they give a slight indication of the 

 number of brave but less fortunate men who have 

 given the last possession of mortal life in their pursuit 

 of the arctic goal. 



The first time I saw the graves of the whalers on 

 Duck Islands I sat there, in the arctic sunlight, looking 

 at those headboards, sobered with a realization of 

 what they meant. When I first saw Sonntag's grave, 



