200 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



in this exhibit is unusually vivid. A half hour in the hall leaves one 

 imbued with the feeling that he has actually traveled into the vuiten- 

 anted world around the North Pole. In the first place the exhibit is 

 installed to give an effect of simplicity and severity, of much uninter- 

 rupted space, cold white surroundings and few objects. Those in 

 charge were careful not to draw on the ^luseum's well-filled store houses 

 of x\rctic materials to such an extent as to destroy this atmosphere of 

 severity. In the second place, because of the nature of the exhibit, 

 everything speaks of adventure, of a difficult life, often of narrow escape 

 and sometimes of disaster. This is true throughout, from the relic of 

 the wrecked "Polaris" — a battered life boat that acts as a sign board 

 just outside the entrance of the hall, to the view of the "Polaris" in 

 Thank God Harbor — an immense canvas at the far end. Every object 

 in the place seems to take on life as a representative of the daring work 

 of some explorer. 



In imagination we see the sleeping bags, displayed near the entrance, 

 with their voluminous fur folds wrapped about the traveller shutting 

 out the savage cold. We see the sledges not as mere dead frame- works 

 of wood, but as active aids to man. In our awakened fancy, they have 

 iced runners and, loaded with provisions, they cut deep trails as with 

 dogs and drivers they pass always on into boundless ice and snow. 

 The mounted dog, placed here to illustrate the Eskimo method of har- 

 nessing, brings to mind the long double-ranked teams, or the fan-shaped 

 teams of eight as Peary drove them, dragging their burdened sledges, 

 obeying word and whip day after day until too w^eak to help the expedi- 

 tion longer, except by giving their l)odies as food to strengthen their 

 fellows; while those who have read "Northward Over the Great Ice" 

 recall Peary's tribute to the dogs of that journey, "Faithful, noble servi- 

 tors .... My only consolation is the knowledge that like ourselves you 

 did not suffer pain. The starvation was so gradual that when at last 

 your lives went out .... the end was painless, as oiu" own would have 

 been had it not been for you." The mounted musk oxen, the many 

 shaggy brown pelts wound about the pillars and the numerous skulls 

 piled upon the floor, bring to mind forcefully the dependence of the 

 explorer upon these animals for food. We get a more vivid under- 

 standing of the eagerness with which he has many a time searched the 

 ground for musk ox tracks, and a more keen sympathy with his fear 

 when he saw one or more of the great creatures, that his eyes l)linded by 



