4 
Peary Auxiliary Expedition. 
area may justly be regarded as a geographical work requiring the 
highest qualities on the part of the Arctic traveller. 
Interest in Greenland exploration has been stimulated in 
America within the last four years, by the two expeditions of 
Civil Engineer Robert E. Peary, U. S. N., and many of that gen- 
eration which followed the achievements of Kane, Hayes and 
Hall with acclamation are still interested in the outcome of this 
latest attempt to wrest from nature the secrets which still lie hid- 
den in the solitudes of the far north. 
As a result of a preliminary journey to the west coast of Green- 
land, and a reconnaissance on the inland ice, in the summer of 
1886, Lieutenant Peary determined to organize an expedition with 
headquarters in the Inglefield Gulf region, where the inland ice 
was more accessible than farther south. The uniqueness of his 
plan consisted in the utilization of the smooth surface of the in- 
terior snow-cap as a means of advance, and he asserted that, to a 
properly equipped sledge party, this great white plain presented 
an “imperial highway” to the north. The success of this new de- 
parture in Arctic travel was fully demonstrated by the results of 
the Peary North Greenland Expedition of 1891-92. By minute 
attention to the details of his equipment, the use of concentrated 
food and the adoption of a light, Eskimo style of dress. Lieuten- 
ant Peary, with one companion,^ succeeded in making a re- 
markable sledge journey of some 1300 miles over the inland ice. 
He eventually reached 82° N. Lat. and made observations which 
led him to believe that Greenland was an island, separated by a 
well defined channel from the detached land masses which ex- 
tended towards the north. 
On his second expedition, which reached Bowdoin Bay — a 
northern indentation of Inglefield Gulf— -on August 3rd, 1893, 
Lieutenant Peary hoped to profit by the lessons of his first at- 
tempt, and furthermore, by making an earlier start, to reach Inde- 
pendence Bay, the limit of his former journey, early enough in the 
season to undertake a dash over the sea ice towards the outlying 
islands which he had observed stretching to the north towards 
1. Mr. Bivind Astrup, of Christiania, Norway. 
