_Tigress_. During the winter
one of the Eskimo women presented the party with a baby, so that their
number had increased during the arduous experience. Meanwhile the
_Polaris_ had been beached on the Greenland shore, and those remaining
on the ship were eventually also rescued.

In 1875 Great Britain began an elaborate attack on the Pole _via_ what
was now known as the American route, two ships most lavishly equipped
being despatched under command of George Nares. He succeeded in
navigating the _Alert_ fourteen miles further north than the _Polaris_
had penetrated four years previous. Before the winter set in, Aldrich on
land reached 82 deg. 48', which was three miles nearer the Pole than Parry's
mark made forty-eight years before, and the following spring Markham
gained 83 deg. 20' on the polar ocean. Other parties explored several
hundred miles of coast line. But Nares was unable to cope with the
scurvy, which disabled thirty-six of his men, or with the severe frosts,
which cost the life of one man and seriously injured others.

The next expedition to this region was that sent out under the auspices
of the United States government and commanded by Lieutenant--now
Major-General--A. W. Greely, U. S. A., to establish at Lady Franklin Bay
the American circumpolar station (1881). Greely during the two years at
Fort Conger carried on extensive explorations of Ellesmere Land and the
Greenland coast, and by the assistance of his two lieutenants, Lockwood
and Brainard, wrested from Great Britain the record which she had held
for 300 years. Greely's mark was 83 deg. 24', which bettered the British by
four miles. As the relief ship, promised for 1883, failed to reach him
or to land supplies at the prearranged point south of Fort Conger, the
winter of 1883-84 was passed in great misery and horror. When help
finally came to the camp at Cape Sabine, seven men only were alive.

While these important events were occurring in the vicinity of
Greenland, interesting developments were also taking place in that half
of the polar area north of Siberia. When in 1867 an American whaler,
Thomas Long, reported new land, Wrangell Land, about 500 miles northwest
of Bering Strait, many hailed the discovery as that of the edge of a
supposed continent extending from Asia across the Pole to Greenland, for
the natives around Bering Strait had long excited explorers by their
traditions of an icebound big land beyond the horizon. Such extravagant
cla