BACK TO LAND 
superable natural difficulties, by the tremen- 
dous fighting-power of himself. The winning 
of the North Pole was a fight with nature; 
the way to the Pole that had been covered and 
retraced by Commander Peary lay across the 
ever moving and drifting ice of the Arctic 
Ocean. For more than a hundred miles from 
Cape Columbia it was piled in heavy pressure 
ridges, ridge after ridge, some more than a 
hundred feet in height. In addition, open 
lanes of water held the parties back until the 
leads froze up again, and continually the 
steady drift of the ice carried us back on the 
course we had come, but due to his deathless 
ambition to know and to do, he had conquered. 
He had added to the sum of Earth's knowl- 
edge, and proven that the mind of man is 
boundless in its desire. 
The long quest for the North Pole is over 
and the awful space that separated man from 
the Ultima Thule has been bridged. There is 
no more beyond ; from Cape Columbia to Cape 
Chelyuskin, the route northward to the Pole, 
and southward again to the plains of Asia, is 
an open book and the geographical mind is at 
rest. 
142 
