PEARY'S EXPEDITION (1892) 283 



boots with woollen socks and fur soles weighing 2 lb., and 

 an under-shirt ; total, about 13 lb. With various com- 

 binations of this outfit, Peary could keep perfectly warm 

 and yet not get into a perspiration, in temperatures from 

 + 40° F. to —50° F., whether at rest, or walking, or 

 dragging a sledge. 



Peary had twenty dogs for the journey, but one died 

 from the fatal piblockto, at the edge of the ice-cap. His 

 dog-food consisted of pemmican. 



The provisions included pemmican, butter, Liebig 

 extract, biscuit, condensed milk, compressed pea-soup, 

 compressed tea, and extract of coffee. The daily ration 

 was 2§ lb. per man. 



From the edge of the ice-cap the sledges had to be 

 dragged up one snow-slope and down another for a 

 distance of 15 miles, before reaching the gradual slope of 

 the true Inland Ice. This point was not reached until 

 the 15th May. 



Peary took a true north-east course, and hoped to clear 

 the heads of the Humboldt, Petermann, and Sherard- 

 Osborn indentations. From this point, two short inarches 

 of 5 and 7 miles brought them to an elevation of 5000 

 feet, and early in the third march the highest summits of 

 the Whale Sound land disappeared, and they found that 

 they were descending. They had passed over the divide 

 between Whale Sound and Kane Basin, and were on the 

 descent towards the basin of the Humboldt Glacier. 

 This third march was 12 miles, and the fourth was 20, 

 and the distant mountain-tops of the land between 

 Rensselaer Harbour and the south-eastern ansde of 

 Humboldt Glacier rose into view in the north-west. 



On the fifth day they covered 20 miles over a gently 

 undulating and gradually descending surface. On the 

 sixth march the surface became much more hummocky, 

 and Peary thought it advisable to deflect about 5 miles 



