206 Notes. 



Perhaps not less important is the confirmation of the opinion 

 expressed eight years ago by General Greely that Greenland 

 ends near the 82d parallel, and that the land to the northward is 

 probably separate. Lieutenant Peary's most northerly point, in 

 latitude §2°, was that looking down on the great fiord which de- 

 bouches in Independence bay. It is of course not proved, but 

 it is ahnost beyond ciuestion, that this is a continuation of Nor- 

 denskiold inlet, wdiich begins in the Polar ocean near the 83d 

 parallel. Of this fiord, discovered by Lieutenant Lock wood 

 May 6, 1882, that lamented and distinguished officer says : " The 

 fiord at whose mouth Ave camped ran to the southeast or south 

 to an immense distance ; no land visible at its head." Lock- 

 wood was a very conservative man, and he charted this fiord 

 southeastward to only longitude 45, which is but five degrees 

 eastward, or less than fifty miles northwest of the most northerly 

 point reached by Lieutenant Peary. The character of the land 

 seen by Peary to the north and northwest indicates satisfactorily 

 that these two fiords are one, as charted by Lieutenant Peary 

 in the New York Sun of October 31. The discovery of musk- 

 oxen at Independence bay confirms General Greely's supposi- 

 tion, put forth in 1884, that these animals reach the eastern coast 

 of Greenland through Nordenskiold or some adjacent inlet. 



In his sketch map (New York Sim, October 31) Peary extends 

 the northern coast of Independence bay some fifty miles east- 

 ward, to about 25° west longitude. This easterly extension of 

 bold, high, ice-free land, with intervening water, whereon the 

 ice was in the process of disintegration, makes it exceedingly 

 doubtful if a very high northing can be made on that coast, with 

 McCormick bay as a base. AVith Thank-God harbor as a home 

 station, however, there will be no serious diflficulty in making a 

 very high latitude, say 85° N., either via Lockwood's route or 

 across the inland ice to Independence bay. 



A. w. G. 



Geographic Prizes. — The National Geographic Society, with a 

 vicAv of encouraging geography in the public high schools of the 

 United States, has instituted certificates and medals which are 

 to be awarded annually in each state to such graduating pupils 

 of public high schools as shall write the best original geographic 

 essays on subjects to be selected by a committee of the Societ3^ 

 It is intended that each essay shall pertain to the continent of 



