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The National Geographic Magazine 



on foot and over the sea ice to the north- 

 ward. He had devised an ingenious 

 scheme for making his little force as 

 mobile as possible. Bach sled was 

 stocked with a complete outfit of pro- 

 visions as though it were the only store 

 from which the party had to draw. All 

 hands used from it until it was emptied, 

 when it was sent back in charge of its 

 Eskimo driver and drawn by only two 

 of the dogs. The other dogs were at- 

 tached to the remaining sleds. In this 

 way two of the Eskimo were sent back 

 on April 26, and two others earl}'' in 

 May. 



Eock wood's farthest North Cairn of 

 May 13, 1882, was opened May 8, and 

 its records were taken ; and at Cape 

 Washington, the headland seen by him 

 fifteen miles northeast, in 1882, another 

 cairn was erected and a copy of the 

 ' ' Farthest ' ' record and additional mem- 

 oranda were deposited. Peary pushed 

 on, and at 83° 39" north rounded the 

 northern extremity of Greenland, find- 

 ing the coast at this point to trend rap- 

 idly eastward. There, on the most 

 northerl}^ known land in the world, 

 Peary built a cairn, in which he depos- 

 ited records, etc. 



Peary then struck over the sea ice for 

 the Pole, but was able to advance only to 

 83° 50' north, when he was stopped by 

 the broken pack and much open water. 

 Retracing his steps, Peary pushed on 

 along the Greenland coast, all the time 

 eastward, about 160 miles beyond Eock- 

 wood's farthest, to latitude 83° north, 

 longitude 25° west, or approximatel}^ 

 but little more than a degree from Inde- 

 pendence Bay, discovered and named b}^ 

 him July 4, 1892. The reconnaissance 

 ended with a definite demonstration 

 of the western and northern coasts of 

 Greenland. 



A pronounced change in the charac- 

 ter of the coast was found beyond 

 Cape Washington, the bold, precipitous 

 headlands and deeply cut fjords being 

 succeeded by a low rolling foreland, 



suggesting possible glaciation at some 

 earlier period ; and all along the northern 

 coast much open water was met. Bear, 

 musk oxen, hare, and lemming were 

 killed in the newly discovered countr}^ 

 affording an ample supply of fresh meat 

 for men and dogs; and a stray wolf was 

 seen. Having practically connected his 

 work of eight years before with that of 

 1900, and completed the determination 

 of the northern boundary of Greenland, 

 Peary, on May 22, turned back, follow- 

 ing practically the line of his outward 

 march, and on June 10 arrived at Fort 

 Conger, having been three months in 

 the field without accident, illness, or 

 serious mishap of any kind to himself 

 or any of his party. 



Peary's own estimate of his work in 

 1900 is given in a letter to Mr. H. E- 

 Bridgman, from which the following 

 extracts are taken : 



" Conger, April ^, igoi. 



" My Dear Bridgman : It gives me 

 great pleasure to present to the club the 

 results of the work of 1900. 



" First. The round of the northern 

 limit of the Greenland archipelago, the 

 most northerly known land in the world ; 

 probabl}^ the most northerly land. 



"Second. The highest latitude 3'et 

 attained in the Western Hemisphere 

 (83° 50' north). 



' ' Third. The determination of the 

 origin of the so-called ' paleocr5'-stic ice ' 

 (floe berg), etc. 



" Considering that I am an old man, 

 have one broken leg and only three toes, 

 and that my starting point was Etah, I 

 feel that this was doing tolerabl}^ well. 

 It is almost a thousand years since 

 ' Eric the Red ' first sighted the south- 

 ern extremity of the archipelago, and 

 from that time Norwegians, Dutch, 

 Danes, Swedes, Englishmen, Scotch- 

 men, and Americans have crept grad- 

 ually northward up its shores, until at 

 last, through the instrumentalit)^ and 

 liberality of the club, its northern cape 



