174 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Starvation sat in, and famine, combined with exposure, took one after the other 

 off. until seven only of the twenty-five picked men for this polar expedition were 

 left to tell the story of the last Arctic tragedy. 



Besides Lieut. Greely there were two other commissioned officers and a sur- 

 geon, and of these Lieut. Greely alone survives, the other survivors being enlisted 

 men. 



It is strange, or appears so to the writer, that Lieut. Greely, whom he knew 

 well, should have been one of the survivors. He was not a strong man, or 

 robust in appearance. He is about six feet tall, slender, rather delicate in ap- 

 pearance, and very nearsighted. He is the last man any of his acquaintances 

 would have thought would volunteer for such perilous service, and having volun- 

 teered, it was believed he never would survive the hardships. 



First Lieutenant Greely, of the Fifth Cavalry, became fired with zeal and 

 enthusiasm about the meteorology of the polar regions through his connection 

 with the Signal Bureau of the army, and he was led even before he started on 

 this expedition to volunteer to go out in the Gulnare, a vessel Captain Howgate, 

 of the Signal Service, had fitted out for polar exploration, but which was con- 

 demned as unseaworthy before she set sail. Lieut. Greely's survival is fortunate, 

 aside from the gratification we must all feel because of the rescue of so gallant an 

 officer, because if the two years' residence in the Arctic regions has developed 

 anything beneficial to science, Lieut. Greely will be most competent to impart it. 



The loss of the others will be deeply deplored, while all must rejoice over 

 the salvation of the few. 



One of the most prominent, and decidedly the most enthusiastic member of 

 the Greely party, was Dr. Octave Pavy, a citizen of Missouri, who died of starva- 

 tion on June 6th of this year. The Doctor was born in France, June 22, 1845, 

 and did not come to America until just before the close of the Franco-Prussian 

 war. He was a gentleman of high attainments, a ripe scholar, skillful surgeon, 

 facile writer and genial companion. He was almost a monomaniac on the sub- 

 ject of polar explorations and for several years acted as Private Secretary for 

 Lambert, the renowned French scientist and explorer, also an enthusiast on Arc- 

 tic discoveries. He imbued the young Frenchman with the same spirit for re- 

 search in the regions of the frozen North. Lambert had received assurances 

 from the French Government that an expedition would be fitted out to go to the 

 Arctic circle, of which he was to receive command, and Pavy would have been 

 one of his associates, but the Franco-Prussian war put an end to the proposed 

 expedition. 



In 1878 Dr. Pavy married Miss Lilla Stone, the daughter of a minister at 

 Lebanon, 111., an estimable and talented lady who encouraged her husband in 

 his cherished designs. For two years and a half Mr. and Mrs. Pavy resided in 

 St. Louis, and he was employed for some time as physician in the Meyer Iron 

 Works. The unfortunate Frenchman talked constantly about a trip to the pole, 

 and it was through Lieut. J. H. Weber, of the United States Signal Service in 

 St. Louis, that he was brought into communication with Captain Howgate, which 



