HISTORICAL SUMMARY 109 



island. Lockwood attempted to pass his previous record, but 

 was prevented by the loose ice and the rugged mountains along 

 the northern coast. As no relief ship arrived and parts of the 

 supplies were running short, a retreat was decided upon, and 

 the party started south in a steam launch and two boats, on the 

 llth of August. Great trouble was experienced in the heavy 

 ice, and they were obliged to abandon their boats on the 10th of 

 September, after having been beset by the ice for two weeks. 

 Land was reached at Cape Sabine on the 29th of September, 

 where a poor shelter of stones and canvas was erected, in which 

 the party passed the winter. Their provisions comprised the 

 remainder of the food taken with them, and a small quantity 

 landed from the Proteus after that vessel sank from an ice nip 

 while trying to reach Greely a few weeks earlier in the season. 

 The bulk of their provisions was obtained from the caches left 

 by Nares in 1875. Exposure to the weather had nearly ruined 

 everything left in the caches, but their contents, even in this 

 shape, were of great assistance to these famished men ; without 

 them all would have succumbed ; as it was, only seven survived 

 the hardships and starvation, when the rescue steamer arrived 

 on the 22nd of June, 1883. 



The next Arctic work was the crossing of the Greenland ice- 

 cap, in 1893, by I^ansen, who landed on the eastern side, and 

 with a few companions succeeded in passing over the immense 

 fields of ice and snow, coming out on the coast of the western 

 side to the southward of Disko. 



Lieutenant R. E. Peary, United States navy, spent eight 

 winters in the regions about Smith sound. During these 

 years none of the ships engaged to take supplies to him were 

 able to penetrate more than the southern portion of Smith 

 sound, and consequently Peary had to haul all his provisions 

 and outfit over the very rough ice in dog-sleds two hundred 

 miles before he arrived at the original starting point of Beau- 

 mont and Lockwood. This was a handicap of the severest des- 



