700 



NATURE 



[February 26, 1920 



extremity of Greenland. In 1893-95 he spent 

 twenty-five months in travelling from the same 

 headquarters and proved the insularity of Green- 

 land. The result of his three years' life with 

 the Eskimo was not only to make a thoroug^h 

 anthropolog-ical study of the tribe, but also to 

 secure the personal friendship of every member 

 of it, and to become intimately acquainted with 

 the character of every individual, so that, in 

 selecting travelling- companions from amongst 

 them, he knew in advance what their powers 

 were and how far they could be trusted. He 

 found that it was possible to live with the Eskimo 

 as one of themselves, and so to make himself 

 independent of the luxuries, and even of many of 

 the supposed necessities, of civilised life without 

 diminishing his power of travelling or of scientific 

 study. 



In 1896 and 1897 Peary made summer trips to 

 the north-west coast of Greenland, and brought 

 back from Cape York the famous mass of meteoric 

 iron weighing 90 tons the existence of which had 

 been reported by Sir John Ross nearly a century 

 earlier. The description of the shipping of this 

 mass of metal on a small vessel with no appli- 

 ances save those which could be improvised on 

 the spot showed how Peary, in becoming an ex- 

 plorer, had not ceased to be a very able civil 

 engineer. 



By this time Peary's plan for reaching the North 

 Pole had been fully matured. He resolved to 

 transport a picked contingent of the best of the 

 young men of the Eskimo tribe he knew so well 

 to the farthest north point accessible by sea, and 

 to leave them there with their wives, families, and 

 full equipment in an absolutely normal settlement 

 •where they would be happy and contented. From 

 this base he was to travel north as far as the land 

 extended by easy stages, and make a second 

 settlement of the best natives at that point. Thence 

 he proposed to make a continuous march over the 

 sea ice to the Pole and back, waiting for a favour- 

 able opportunity, and spending the w-aiting time, 

 whether it should be weeks or years, in studying 

 the effects of wind and tides on the ice-move- 

 ments. Lord Northcliffe presented to him the 

 steamer JVindward, which had done good service 

 in the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition to Franz 

 Josef Land, and, under the auspices of the Peary 

 Arctic Ckib of Philadelphia, Peary set out on his 

 great task in 1898. It was 1902 before he re- 

 turned, having reached only 84° 17', but, in spite 

 of the severest hardships, he was more convinced 

 than ever of the soundness of his method of ex- 

 ploration. In 1904, while recovering from his 

 privations. Peary presided over the Eighth Inter- 

 national Geographical Congress in Washington 

 and New York, impressing all who attended that 

 brilliant meeting with the confident, yet modest, 

 assurance of his ultimate success by the methods 

 he had worked out. 



In 1905 Peary started in the new exploring 



ship Roosevelt, but had to return in igo6 with 



no greater success than the attainment of latitude 



87° 6', the farthest north that had been reached 



NO. 2626, VOL. 104] 



so far. Finally, in 1908, he went north for the 

 seventh time, again in the Roosevelt, and at 

 last,* by the perfected working of his original 

 plan, he hit the fortunate trend of ice and weather 

 and reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. It 

 will be remembered how the pleasure of this 

 triumph was marred by the pretension of Dr. 

 F. A. Cook to have attained the Pole a year 

 earlier ; but the unfortunate controversy held at 

 least this crumb of comfort, that Cook's claim, 

 unfounded as it was, was to have attained success 

 by Peary's method of travelling with trusted 

 Eskimo. 



Peary had a fine presence and a forceful diction 

 in speech and writing, his books are amongst the 

 most stimulating for the reading of young ex- 

 plorers, and his careful inductions and thoroughly 

 reasoned plans are a model to all who have to do 

 with the promotion of exploration. He was sup- 

 ported in all his efforts by his wife, who accom- 

 panied him on two of his expeditions. 



H. R. M, 



ROBERT ETHERIDGE. 



MR. ROBERT ETHERIDGE, director of the 

 Australian Museum, Sydney, died on 

 January 4 last at the age of seventy-three years. 

 He was active almost until the end, still occupied 

 with research, and his decease is a serious loss 

 to Australasian science. The only son of the late 

 Mr. Robert Etheridge, palaeontologist to the Geo- 

 logical Survey of Great Britain, and afterwards 

 assistant-keeper of the geological department ojj 

 the British Museum, Etheridge adopted the pro.! 

 fession of his father, and made many important 

 contributions to our knowledge of the fossils of, 

 both Australasia and Britain. Beginning his care' 

 on the first geological survey of Victoria, Au 

 tralia, he returned in the early 'seventies t 

 become palaeontologist to the Geological Survey 

 of Scotland, where he not only did important 

 official work, but also co-operated with the late 

 Prof. H. A. Nicholson in describing the Silurian 

 fossils of Girvan, Ayrshire. From 1878 until 188' 

 he was assistant in the geological department 01 

 the British Museum, where he joined the lati 

 P. Herbert Carpenter in the authorship of th^ 

 "Catalogue of the Blastoidea," which still remain 

 the standard work on these fossils. 



Colonial life, however, had special attractioni 

 for li^theridge, and in 1887 he returned finally to' 

 Australia as palaeontologist to the Geological 

 Survey of New South Wales and to the Australian 

 Museum. He started two new serials, the 

 Records of the Geological Survey and the 

 Records of the Australian Museum, and pub- 

 lished many memoirs and papers on Australian 

 fossils. He also joined R. Logan Jack in pre- 

 paring two handsome volumes on " The Geology 

 and Palaeontology of Queensland and New 

 Guinea," which were published in 1892. In 1895 

 he succeeded E. P. Ramsay as director of the 

 Australian Museum, but his new administrative 

 I duties did not damp his ardour for research, 



