moment during these marches and countermarches, I had passed
over or very near the point[2] where north and south and east and west
blend into one.

[Illustration: PEARY WITH CHRONOMETER, SEXTANT AND ARTIFICIAL HORIZON AT
THE POLE]

[Illustration: PEARY TAKING AN OBSERVATION AT THE POLE, WITH ARTIFICIAL
HORIZON, IN A SNOW SHELTER]

Photos by Henson, April 7

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF OBSERVATIONS AT CAMP MORRIS JESUP, APRIL 7,
1909]

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF OBSERVATIONS AT CAMP MORRIS JESUP, APRIL 7,
1909]

[Illustration: THE FOUR NORTH POLE ESKIMOS:

From Left to Right: Ootah, Ooqueah, Seegloo, Egingwah]

Of course there were some more or less informal ceremonies connected
with our arrival at our difficult destination, but they were not of a
very elaborate character. We planted five flags at the top of the world.
The first one was a silk American flag which Mrs. Peary gave me fifteen
years ago. That flag has done more traveling in high latitudes than any
other ever made. I carried it wrapped about my body on every one of
my expeditions northward after it came into my possession, and I left a
fragment of it at each of my successive "farthest norths": Cape Morris
K. Jesup, the northernmost point of land in the known world; Cape Thomas
Hubbard, the northernmost known point of Jesup Land, west of Grant Land;
Cape Columbia, the northernmost point of North American lands; and my
farthest north in 1906, latitude 87 deg. 6' in the ice of the polar sea. By
the time it actually reached the Pole, therefore, it was somewhat worn
and discolored.

A broad diagonal section of this ensign would now mark the farthest goal
of earth--the place where I and my dusky companions stood.

It was also considered appropriate to raise the colors of the Delta
Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in which I was initiated a member while an
undergraduate student at Bowdoin College, the "World's Ensign of
Liberty and Peace," with its red, white, and blue in a field of white,
the Navy League flag, and the Red Cross flag.

[Illustration: PEARY'S IGLOO AT CAMP MORRIS K. JESUP, APRIL 6, 1909;

The Most Northerly Human Habitation in the World. In the Background
Flies Peary's North Polar Flag Which He Had Carried for Fifteen Years]

After I had planted the American flag in the ice, I told Henson to time
the Eskimos for three rousing cheers, which they gave with the greatest
enthusiasm. Thereupon, I shook hands with each member of the