46 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 



delightfully calm, clear morning, with the sun well above the 

 horizon. 



The station consists of two small houses, that belonging to 

 Peary being the old deck-house of his ship the Windward, the 

 other, a small building with single-boarded sides, in which the 

 Stein expedition spent two winters. The houses were only a 

 few yards apart, both about fifty yards from the water, and 

 surrounded with the usual heaps of old tin cans and empty 

 boxes found about northern quarters where the staples of food 

 are carried in cases. A large amount of putrid walrus blubber 

 was scattered everywhere about the place, and the smell from 

 it was far stronger than that of a deserted snowhouse in spring- 

 time, which was our previous limit to pungent and disagreeable 

 odours. On a low rocky hill, a few yards behind the houses, 

 were the burial-mounds of five Eskimos, four adults and one 

 child, all wrapped in musk-ox skins and loosely covered with 

 stones. An old gun, snow knives and other gear belonging to 

 the dead were placed alongside the graves. These must have 

 been very pleasant company during the long Arctic night, 

 especially so close to the scene of the Grreely disaster, where 

 many of that party died of starvation and sickness before relief 

 could reach them. 



When one has been at the headquarters of these Arctic expe- 

 ditions, a good idea is gained of the difficulties and privations 

 of those engaging in polar research. Peary was here, over eight 

 hundred miles in a straight line from the pole, forced to make 

 many trips to transport his provisions and outfit to the farthest 

 land before he could attempt his dash across the rough Arctic 

 pack for the pole. The pluck and daring of such men are to be 

 admired, but the waste of energy, life and money in a useless 

 and probably unsuccessful attempt to reach the pole can only 

 be deplored, as no additional scientific knowledge is likely to 

 be gained by this achievement. 



