The American Museum Journal 



Vol. XII MARCH, 1912 No. 3 



IN SEARCH OF CROCKER LAND 



A NEW VENTURE INTO ARCTIC REGIONS — THE CROCKER LAND EXPEDITION 



WILL ENDEAVOR TO SOLVE THE WORLd's LAST GREAT GEOGRAPHICAL 



PROBLEM — SEARCH FOR THE UNEXPLORED LAND SIGHTED BY 



PEARY ON HIS SUCCESSFUL DASH TO THE POLE 



Bi/ Edmund Otis Ilovri/ 



IS there a " ("rocker Land" in the Arctic Ocean? A(hniral Peary beheves 

 that he saw such a place throu^ih his field glasses in June, 190(), whether 

 island, archipelago or lesser continental mass, he knows not. Also 

 from recorded tidal observations, the existence of land at the gi\en spot 

 has been deduced by Dr. R. A. Harris, tiflal expert of the I'nited States 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey. 



For several years this question of the Arctic Seas has been in tlie minds 

 of explorers and geographers. Two men, George Borup and Donald B. 

 MacMillan, both of Peary's successful polar party, ha\e now volunteered 

 to answer it, while the American Museum of Natural History and the 

 American (ieographical Society consider the question of such commanding 

 importance that they hnw decided to give their support to these men in 

 an expedition to reach and map the new Crocker Land — if it exists. The 

 expedition will also, while en route to the unknown land, make all the geo- 

 logical, geographical and other scientific studies that circumstances may 

 permit. 



Admiral R. E. Peary in his l)ook, Nearest the Pole, records the following 

 observations made June oO from the summit of Cape Thomas Hubbard, 

 the most northern point of A.xel Heiberg Land: "The clear day greatly 

 favored my work in taking a round of angles and with the glasses I could 

 make out, apparently a little more distinctly [than when seen a few days 

 ago], the snow-clad sunnnits of the distant land in the northwest above 

 the ice horizon." Peary had previously seen this land from the top of 

 Cape Colgate, 2()()() feet above the sea level. He located the new land at 

 about long. 100° W. and lat. S3° N., or about one hundred and thirty 

 miles from Cape Thomas Hul)bar(l, and gave it the name of "Crocker 

 Land," in honor of the late Mr. (ieorge Crocker, of the Peary Arctic Club. 

 Dr. Harris states his belief in the monograph, Arctic Tides (1911), that 

 this Crocker Land is the eastern edge of a great area of land or archipelago 

 north of western America ami eastern Siberia. 



83 



