264 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



board eight good dog-drivers, with their wives and families, a total of 

 twenty-six Eskimo and eighty dogs and twenty-five pups. These dog- 

 drivers are among the best in the tribe. They improvised little igloos on 

 deck for their families from our boxes of supplies in the main hold. They 

 must have inherited some of the skill of our prehistoric cave-dwelling ances- 

 tors. They put their kayaks up on the stays, from which they could easily 

 put them overboard when they wished to go after a narwhal or a walrus. 



"With Etah as our base, we bucked the ice in Smith Sound for over a week, 

 embracing every opportunity that promised a way across to Cape Sabine 

 and retreating to the harbor whenever the closing ice threatened to crush 

 our ship, there to stay until our watch on the mountain back of Etah should 

 report a favorable lead widening toward Ellesmere Land. Every lead that 

 promised ingress to Flagler Fjord, where we had planned to establish our 

 headquarters, was eagerly followed through our glasses. 



" From the barrel at the masthead the members of our party took turns at 

 the watch, but in vain. We were even unable to approach within fifteen 

 miles of Cape Sabine or of Payer Harbor on Pirn Island, where we might 

 have established a base from which it would have been relatively easy to 

 prosecute our explorations and scientific research, though with less dispatch 

 and certainty of accomplishing all we hoped to do. On our latest attempt 

 we encountered a massive pack that extended without break from Lyttleton 

 Island to Cape Sabine, studded with colossal floes and massive bergs. This 

 impenetrable barrier extended as far back into Kane Basin as the vision 

 could attain with the most powerful glasses. An unfavorable wind was 

 packing all the drift ice against the barrier. The most optimistic among us 

 could not detect a ray of hope that a passage would open this year, and we 

 reluctantly abandoned our attempt to cross to Ellesmere Land and turned 

 the ship back to Etah. 



" Thus Etah becomes the headquarters for the Crocker Land expedition. 

 On the site of Peary's old base we have unloaded our supplies and equipment 

 and begun the foundation of the house which is to be our home for the next 

 two or three years. The ' Erik ' was laid up along the rocks, and everything 

 except our lumber unloaded directly, without the aid of boats, about a 

 quarter of a mile from the site of our house. 



"The site we have chosen offers the maximum comfort and convenience 

 attainable in the North. Its only drawbacks are a restricted view of the sea, 

 a rocky shore to land our boats and a doubtful position for our wireless 

 aerials. Its advantages are a sheltering protection from the cold winds of 

 the north and east, accessibility to water hunting-grounds and the sea, prox- 

 imity of Eskimo to assist us in our work, full exposure to the sun whenever 

 it shines, favorable conditions for valuable scientific work and an accessible 

 gateway to the Greenland ice cap, which we hope to explore before next 

 summer. Altogether Etah is perhaps the best possible site on the Green- 



