FOREWORD xvii 



scientific co-operation of your members so as to obtain the best 

 results from this expedition. Yours very truly, 



(Signed) "R. L. Borden." 

 "Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Esq., 

 "Director and Editor, 



"National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C." 



While the National Geographic Society waived its claim, this, 

 act did not lessen our interest in Stefansson or the admiration with 

 which we followed his five and a half years' contest against 

 obstacles insuperable to any other man. Our expectation of im- 

 portant discoveries by his original methods were realized to such a 

 gratifying extent that on his return the highest honor in the gift of 

 the Society, the Hubbard Gold Medal, previously won by Peary and 

 Amundsen, was unanimously awarded him by the Society's Com- 

 mittee on Research. 



Those members who were present when the medal was con- 

 ferred will not soon forget that memorable meeting of the National 

 Geographic Society, when Stefansson was presented to the mem- 

 bers by the two foremost figures in American polar history — Peary, 

 discoverer of the North Pole, and Greely, who had wrested from 

 Great Britain thirty-seven years before (1882) the record for the 

 Farthest North, held by British explorers for 300 years. 



Peary had been seriously sick for many months and really should 

 not have risked the fatigue of addressing such a large audience, but 

 in his eagerness to say a kind word of appreciation of his friend — 

 Stefansson — he overrode his physician's orders. The following 

 tribute to Stefansson was Peary's last public address; a few months 

 later his heroic voice was still. 



ADMIRAL PEARY's LAST PUBLIC APPEARANCE. 



"Fellow members of the National Geographic Society: 

 "To-day we add another to the long list of Polar explorers, both 

 north and south, whom our Society has welcomed and to whom our 

 members have listened with absorbing interest. 



"Six years ago, in the parlor of a hotel in Rome, I said good-bye 

 to a confident young friend of mine who was starting then for home 

 in order to begin one of our latest Polar quests. I met him here 

 to-day for the first time since then. How much has happened to 



