326 The American Geologist. November, 1894 
math the sea and the deposition of the upper part of the San 
Francisco sandstone, thus bringing the upper member into con- 
tact with the diabase near the golden gate. n. n. w. 
March Weather on the Greenland Ice-sheet. 
Lieut. Peary started on the 6th of last March from his win- 
ter station on Bowdoin bay, near latitude 78°, with the plan 
of traveling northeast over the Greenland ice-sheet a distance 
of about 650 miles to Independence bay, the limit of his pre- 
vious expedition, on the northeastern coast at latitude 82 . 
The party comprised 8 men, 12 sledges, and 90 dogs. Upon 
reaching Independence bay, which Peary hoped to do early in 
April, the party was to be divided for exploration both north- 
ward and southward. The time of his setting out, however, 
was much too early, being at the very beginning of the cir- 
cumpolar half year of constant daylight. After a journey of 
two weeks on the ice-sheet, reaching an altitude of about 
5,000 feet, the party experienced, on March 20th to the 23d r 
an "equinoctial storm" of blinding snow, fierce wind, and very 
low temperature, probably unequalled in the experience of any 
former Arctic expedition. The self-recording anemometer 
showed that the wind during thirty-four hours had an aver- 
age velocity of 48 miles an hour; and the thermograph showed 
an average temperature of 50° F. below zero. Exceedingly 
cold weather and other very severe storms followed, the tem- 
perature being mostly 40° to 50° below zero, with almost con- 
tinual wind. Some of the men had their feet and hands frozen ; 
the dogs, enduring in the snow outside the tents the full 
hardships of the storms, were in a few instances frozen to 
death, and the others were attacked by a fatal disease; and 
some of the sledges were broken in being drawn over the 
sharply ridged snow drifts. The party was soon diminished 
to half its original number by the return of frost-bitten and 
sick men, until the expedition, after having advanced in total 
about 125 miles, was reluctantly abandoned by Peary on April 
10th, that he might save a sufficient reserve of his provisions, 
sledges, and dogs, for another attempt next year. The sum- 
mer was spent in explorations of the Greenland coast, glaciers, 
and border of the ice-sheet, in the neighborhood of the winter 
