WE REACH THE POLE 295 



I carried it wrapped about my body on every one 

 of my expeditions northward after it came into my 

 possession, and I left a fragment of it at each of my 

 successive "farthest norths": Cape Morris K. Jesup, 

 the northernmost point of land in the known world; 

 Cape Thomas Hubbard, the northernmost known 

 point of Jesup Land, west of Grant Land; Cape 

 Columbia, the northernmost point of North American 

 lands; and my farthest north in 1906, latitude 87° 6' 

 in the ice of the polar sea. By the time it actually 

 reached the Pole, therefore, it was somewhat worn 

 and discolored. 



A broad diagonal section of this ensign would now 

 mark the farthest goal of earth — the place where I 

 and my dusky companions stood. 



It was also considered appropriate to raise the 

 colors of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in which 

 I was initiated a member while an undergraduate 



The continued series of observations in the vicinity of the Pole, noted above, 

 left me with eyes that were, for two or three days, useless for anything requiring 

 careful vision, and had it been necessary for me to set a course during the first 

 two or three days of our return I should have found it extremely trying. 



Snow goggles, as worn by us continually during the march, while helping, 

 do not entirely relieve the eyes from strain, and during a series of observations 

 the eyes become extremely tired and at times uncertain. 



Various authorities will give different estimates of the probable error in obser- 

 vations taken at the Pole. I am personally inclined to think that an allowance 

 of five miles is an equitable one. 



No one, except those entirely ignorant of such matters, has imagined for a 

 moment that I was able to determine with my instruments the precise position 

 of the Pole, but after having determined its position approximately, then 

 setting an arbitrary allowance of about ten miles for possible errors of the 

 instruments and myself as observer, and then crossing and recrossing that ten 

 mile area in various directions, no one except the most ignorant will have any 

 doubt but what, at some time, I had passed close to the precise point, and had, 

 perhaps, actually passed over it. 



