206 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



the incessant glare of the ice would give a false aim at the critical 

 moment. 



The realism of the exhibit is increased by the work of a newly-invented 

 automatic stereopticon placed in a darkened alcove at the right of the 

 hall. Through- its display of pictures (uninterrupted from nine in the 

 morning until five in the afternoon) the visitor is carried into the heart 

 of the Arctics. He looks on boats and men, sledges and dogs, in action; 

 he sees in these pictures the very mountains and icebergs, the self-same 

 pressure ridges or "rafters" of ice and the leads of open water that the 

 explorer whose hand held the camera saw in reality. 



The central and most striking feature of the hall is a map painted in 

 color on the floor over a space 30 feet by oO feet in dimensions. It 

 presents the approach to the Pole from North America only, the more 

 frequently used of the two principal paths of exploration, namely: the 

 route between Nova Zembla and Franz Josef Island, the direct course 

 from Europe; and that through Davis Straight, Baffin Bay and Smith 

 Sound, a lane of open water stretching northward between Greenland 

 on the east and the line of Arctic iVmerican islands extending from I^abra- 

 dor to Ellesmere Land on the west. This map, therefore, does not 

 show the route of Nansen, nor does it give that of the Duke of the Abruzzi, 

 since both of these men made their approach from the Old World. It 

 does mark the points reached by ]Markham and Parry in 1876, by 

 Greeley in ISSl and by Lockwood and Brainard in 1882. It shows, 

 at Cape Morris K. Jesup and Cape Bridgman, the limit of exploration 

 by Peary in 1900 and marks conspicuously the "farthest north" of the 

 same explorer as reached April 26, 1906. The chief aim of the map, 

 however, is to show the route of Peary's last or eighth expedition, 

 financed by the Peary Arctic Club. 



The story graphically spread out on the floor concerns more than a 

 year's time anfl a distance of 800 geographic miles from Cape York 

 northward to the Pole. The expedition started from Cape York August 

 1, traveling up Smith Sound. It reached Cape Alexander August 18 

 and Fort Conger September 2, the latter place being about 500 miles 

 distant from the Pole. At Cape Sheridan the "Roosevelt" remained in 

 winter quarters, as is indicated by the presence of a small model of the 

 boat placed on the map at this point. On March 1, a few days before 

 the sun rose above the horizon after the long Arctic night, the sledge 

 journey began, a journey of more than 400 miles over drifting ice. 



