CAPE SHERIDAN AT LAST 121 



we might reach Porter Bay. But after two miles we 

 came to another impassable barrier of ice, and it was 

 decided that it was Cape Sheridan again for this year's 

 winter quarters. Back we went, and the work of 

 getting the Roosevelt inside the tide crack was begun. 



My heart was light. Those two miles beyond 

 Cape Sheridan had given us the record of "farthest 

 north" which any vessel had ever reached under her 

 own steam, 82° 30'. One vessel only, Nansen's Fram> 

 had been farther north, but she had drifted there stern 

 foremost, a plaything of the ice. Again the little 

 black, strenuous Roosevelt had proven herself the 

 champion. 



There are some feelings which a man cannot express 

 in words. Such were mine as the mooring lines went 

 out onto the ice foot at Cape Sheridan. We had 

 kept the scheduled time of our program and had 

 negotiated the first part of the difficult proposition — 

 that of driving a ship from New York to a point within 

 striking distance of the Pole. All the uncertainties 

 of ice navigation — the possible loss of the Roosevelt 

 and a large quantity of our supplies — were at an 

 end. Another source of gratification was the realiza- 

 tion that this last voyage had further accentuated 

 the value of detailed experience in this arduous work. 

 Notwithstanding the delays which had sometimes 

 seemed endless, we had made the voyage with only a 

 small percentage of the anxieties and injury to the 

 ship which we had experienced on the former upward 

 journey in 1905. 



Lying there, with the northern bounds of all known 

 lands — except those close to us — lying far to the 



