THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY'S NOTABLE YEAR 



339 



ADMIRAL PEARY S LAST PUBLIC APPEAR- 

 ANCE 



It was at this meeting of The Society 

 that Admiral Peary made his last public 

 appearance to pay the following tribute 

 to his fellow-explorer: 



"Fellow-members of the National Geo- 

 graphic Society: 



"Today we add another to the long list 

 of Polar explorers, both north and south, 

 whom our Society has welcomed and to 

 whom our members have listened with 

 absorbing interest. 



"Six years ago, in the parlor of a hotel 

 in Rome, I said good-bye to another con- 

 fident young friend of mine who was 

 starting then for home in order to begin 

 one of our latest Polar quests. I met 

 him here today for the first time since 

 then. How much has happened to him 

 in those six years I need not attempt to 

 relate. Five and one-half years of those 

 six this man has been there in the Arctic 

 regions adding to the sum of the world's 

 knowledge. Five and one-half years ! 



A NEW TYPE OP EXPLORER COMING 



"It is not my intent to go into a resume 

 of his work. He is going to tell you that 

 himself, but I can note very briefly that 

 within that time Stefansson has added 

 more than 1 00,000 square miles to the 

 maps of that region — the greatest single 

 addition made for years in Arctic regions. 

 He has outlined three islands that were 

 entirely unknown before, and his obser- 

 vations in other directions, the elimina- 

 tion of the continental shelf, filling in of 

 unknown gaps in the Arctic archipelago, 

 and his help in summing up our knowl- 

 edge of those regions are in fact invalu- 

 able. 



"Stefansson is perhaps the last of the 

 old school, the old regime of Arctic and 

 Antarctic explorers, the worker with the 

 dog and the sledge, among whom he 

 easily holds a place in the first rank. 

 Coming Polar explorers, both north and 

 south, are quite likely to use modern 

 means which have sprung into existence 

 within the last few years. 



"According to my own personal im- 

 pressions — aerial flights ; according to 

 Stefansson, he would like to try his 



chances with a submarine ; but whether 

 it be aeroplane or submarine, it will mean 

 the end of the old-time method with the 

 dog and the sledge and man trudging 

 alongside or behind them. 



"What Stefansson stands for is this : 

 he has grasped the meaning of Polar 

 work and has pursued his task in the 

 Arctic regions section by section. He 

 has profited by experience piled upon 

 experience until he knows how to face 

 and overcome every problem of the 

 North. His method of work is to take 

 the white man's brains and intelligence 

 and the white man's persistence and 

 will-power into the Arctic, and sup- 

 plement these forces with the wood-craft, 

 or, I should say, polar-craft, of the 

 Eskimo — the ability to live off the land 

 itself, the ability to use every one of 

 the few possibilities of those frozen 

 regions — and concentrate on his work. 



"Stefansson has evolved a way to make 

 himself absolutely self-sustaining. He 

 could have lived in the Arctic fifteen and 

 a half years just as easily as five and a 

 half years. By combining great natural, 

 physical, and mental ability with hard, 

 practical, common sense, he has made an 

 absolute record. 



"Stefansson has not only fought and 

 overcome those ever-present contingen- 

 cies of the Arctic region — cold and hun- 

 ger, wet and starvation, and all that goes 

 with them — but he has fought and over- 

 come sickness — first, typhoid ; then pneu- 

 monia, and then pleurisy — up in those 

 forbidding regions, and then has been 

 obliged to go by sled four hundred miles 

 before finding the shelter of a hospital 

 and the care of a physician." 



GENERAL GREELYS TRIBUTE TO 

 STEEANSSON 



Major General Greely likewise paid a 

 memorable tribute to the Hubbard Gold 

 Medalist : 



"At this meeting of the members of 

 the National Geographic Society to do 

 honor to an American explorer, there 

 rises in my mind a throng of memories 

 of that three years of Arctic service, so 

 far buried in the past, when it was ac- 

 tion, action, always action, and not, as 

 now, the uttering of a word. 



"The Bible tells us that Isaiah saw a 



