440 REVIEWS 



the return of the larger part of the party, the voyages of the fall and 

 the winter, and the story of the third winter passed in the high north. 

 The climax of sympathetic interest is reached when Peary comes 

 to tell of his second crossing of the ice-cap in the face of unusual dif- 

 ficulties, and of the scant margin by which he escaped several threat- 

 ened sources of disaster. The objects and results of the expeditions of 

 1893-5 are summarized as follows : 



Objects. — The delimitation of the detached lands lying north of main 

 Greenland ; the filling in of the remaining gaps in the northern and north- 

 eastern coast line of Greenland ; in the event of favorable conditions, an 

 attempt upon the Pole ; the completion of the detail survey of the Whale 

 Sound region ; continuation of the studies of the Smith Sound Eskimos ; the 

 discovery of the "Iron Mountain." 



Results. — The crossing of the inland ice-cap of north Greenland under 

 a most serious handicap of insufficient provisions; the completion of the 

 detail survey of Whale Sound ; large accessions of material and information 

 in connection with the Smith Sound Eskimos; the discovery of the "Iron 

 Mountain " or Cape York " Saviksue," and the bringing home of two of those 

 interesting meteorites. 



The work is completed by the narrative of the two summer voyages 

 made in 1896 and 1897, whose chief object was the bringing home of 

 the great Cape York meteorite, which was successfully accomplished 

 by the latter expedition. 



The work is written in clear and graphic style, and the story is 

 followed with ease and satisfaction by the reader. The narrative moves 

 forward at a steady and rather rapid pace, and is unusually free from 

 tedious passages. The size of the work is not due to needless deploy- 

 ment of details or the introduction of much subjective matter. It is 

 merely an expression of the great amount of work which Lieutenant 

 Peary has done. His aim has been, as stated in the preface, to con- 

 dense and to avoid all padding. In the main he has avoided exploit- 

 ing his feelings, a practice quite too much the fashion with Arctic 

 explorers. When he has given them expression it has usually been on 

 occasions that specially invited it, and then with brevity and good 

 taste. 



The scientific reader will of course wish that the natural phenom- 

 ena of that wonderful region had been set forth with greater detail 

 and with more special reference to their scientific bearings, but this 

 would doubtless have been less acceptable to the great mass of readers 



