EDITORIAL. 729 



to Cape Alexander, and even beyond. Inglefield Gulf and its 

 dependencies, which on our charts are little more than a caricature, 

 have been outlined with considerable accuracy, the leading points 

 about Bowdoin Bay being fixed by triangulation. Mr. Astrup 

 has made a new map of Melville Bay, which, notwithstanding the 

 prominent and grewsome part it has played in northern naviga- 

 tion, is laid down on the charts with great inaccuracy. The 

 outlines of the inland ice, and the glacial tongues which protrude 

 from it, have been delineated with much greater approach to 

 accuracy than heretofore. Other geological features have received 

 attention. As elsewhere indicated, in addition to the geograph- 

 ical features of the glaciers, some of their physical characteristics, 

 including their rates of movement, have been studied. 



The meteorological observations, in the hands of Mr. E. B. 

 Baldwin, formerly in the United States Weather Service, have been 

 commendably complete in plan and successful in execution. In 

 kind and grade they have been essentially the same as those 

 required at our weather stations of the first order. The barograph 

 and the thermograph were not only successfully manipulated at 

 headquarters, but were kept in operation upon a sledge during 

 the journey on the inland ice in the stormy months of March 

 and April, as was also the anemometer. Continuous records of 

 the temperature and of the atmospheric pressure and movements 

 were thus secured. This is, we believe, quite beyond precedent. 

 Perhaps nothing can better show that Lieutenant Peary's expe- 

 dition was something more than an adventurous rush for the 

 " fartherest north," or even for mere extent of coastal explora- 

 tion, than this successful attempt to carry delicate instruments of 

 continuous and exact record on a perilous trip, where every 

 pound of burden and every expenditure of effort were matters 

 of moment to the outcome. 



This is not the place for an extended sketch of the scientific 

 work of the expedition, but the citation of these items may aid 

 in giving to genuine scientific interest and appreciation a tangible 

 basis, quite apart from the humanistic phases of the enterprise 

 that most attract the general attention. T. C. C. 



