m. Scoresby, Sr., who
reached by ship 81 deg. 30' N., 19' E. (1806), a record till Parry eclipsed
it; Wm. Scoresby, Jr., who changed all ideas of East Greenland (1822)
and made valuable scientific observations, and the German North Polar
expedition of 1869-70. One of the ships of the latter was crushed in the
ice and sank. The crew escaped to an ice floe on which they drifted in
the darkness of an arctic winter for 1300 miles along the coast of
Greenland to Frederiksthaal.

The preceding brief summary gives only an inadequate conception of the
immense treasures of money and lives expended by the nations to explore
the northern ice world and to attain the apex of the earth. All efforts
to reach the Pole had failed, notwithstanding the unlimited sacrifice of
gold and energy and blood which had been poured out without stint for
nearly four centuries. But the sacrifice had not been without
compensation. Those who had ventured their lives in the contest had not
been actuated solely by the ambition to win a race--to breast the tape
first--but to contribute, in Sir John Franklin's words, "to the
extension of the bounds of science." The scores of expeditions, in
addition to new geographical discoveries, had brought back a wealth of
information about the animals and vegetable life, the winds and
currents, deep sea temperatures, soundings, the magnetism of the earth,
fossils and rock specimens, tidal data, etc., which have enriched many
branches of science and greatly increased the sum of human knowledge.

A brief summer excursion to Greenland in 1886 aroused Robert E. Peary, a
civil engineer in the United States Navy, to an interest in the polar
problem. Peary a few years previously had been graduated from Bowdoin
College second in his class, a position which means unusual mental vigor
in an institution which is noted for the fine scholarship and intellect
of its alumni. He realized at once that the goal which had eluded so
many hundreds of ambitious and dauntless men could be won only by a new
method of attack.

The first arctic problem with which Peary grappled was considered at
that time in importance second only to the conquest of the Pole; namely,
to determine the insularity of Greenland and the extent of its
projection northward. At the very beginning of his first expedition to
Greenland, in 1891, he suffered an accident which sorely taxed his
patience as well as his body, and which is mentioned here as it
illustrates t