If you will get out your geography and turn to the map of the Western
Hemisphere you will be able to follow me. Take the seventieth meridian,
west. It is the major meridian of the Western Hemisphere, its northern
land extremity being Cape Columbia, Grant Land; southward it crosses our
own Cape Cod and the island of Santo Domingo, and runs down through the
Andes to Cape Horn, the southern extremity of South America.

The seventieth meridian was our pathway to the Pole, based on the west
longitude of 70 deg.. Both Professor Marvin and Captain Bartlett took their
observations at their respective farthests, and at the Pole, where all
meridians meet, Commander Peary took his elevations of the sun, based on
the local time of the Columbian meridian.

Cape Columbia was discovered over fifty years ago, by the intrepid
Captain Hall, who gave his life to Arctic exploration, and lies buried
on the Greenland coast. From the time of the arrival of the _Roosevelt_
at Cape Sheridan, the previous September, communications with Cape
Columbia were opened up, the trail was made and kept open all through
the winter by constant travel between the ship and the cape. Loads of
supplies, in anticipation of the start for the Pole, were sledged there.

The route to Cape Columbia is through a region of somber magnificence.
Huge beetling cliffs overlook the pathway; dark savage headlands, around
which we had to travel, project out into the ice-covered waters of the
ocean, and vast stretches of wind-swept plains meet the eye in alternate
changes. From Cape Sheridan to Cape Columbia is a distance of
ninety-three miles. In ordinary weather, it took about three and a half
marches, although on the return from the Pole it was covered in two
marches, men and dogs breezing in.

On February 18, 1909, I left the _Roosevelt_ on what might be a
returnless journey. The time to strike had come. Captain Bartlett and
Dr. Goodsell had already started. The Commander gave me strict orders to
the effect that I must get to Porter Bay, pick up the cache of alcohol
left there late in the previous week, solder up the leaks, and take it
to Cape Columbia, there to await his arrival. The cause of the
alcohol-leakage was due to the jolting of the sledges over the rough
ice, puncturing the thin tin of the alcohol-cases.

I wish you could have seen me soldering those tins, under the conditions
of darkness, intense cold, and insufficient furnace arrangement I had to
endure.