e forests. True, the fields with their birds
and flowers interested him to some extent, but the mighty ocean,
heaving with its mysterious tides and beset with treacherous gales,
interested him most. Never did he tire of the stories of danger and
hardship as told by the sturdy, adventurous fishermen. So eager was he
to learn the mysteries of the mighty deep that he would sit for hours
at a time listening to the sailors as they explained the tides and
shifting winds. Little did he realize in those early days that this
was precisely the knowledge that he would later need in his work as an
arctic explorer.

But the fishermen were not his only teachers; for so faithful was he
in his regular school work that, at the age of seventeen, he was ready
to enter college. Bowdoin, the oldest and best known college in the
state, was chosen. Upon his graduation, at the age of twenty-one, he
was ready to start in life. But where should he go and what should he
do? Odd as it then seemed to his friends, he chose the little village
of Fryeburg, away back amid the mountains of Maine. Here he hung out
his sign as land surveyor. As practically no one in that little town
wanted land surveyed, he had much leisure time which he spent in long
hikes over the mountains and along the trout streams. This experience
further fitted him for his tasks as an arctic explorer.

That he had always been an energetic student was shown by his success
in passing the United States Civil Service examination which he took
at the age of twenty-five. This examination, given by the Navy
Department, was for the purpose of choosing civil engineers. Out of
forty who took the examination only four passed, and Mr. Peary was the
youngest of the four.

As soon as he had won the rank of Lieutenant, his first task was to
estimate carefully the cost of building a huge pier at Key West,
Florida. When the estimate was handed in, the contractors said that it
could not be built for that amount. Since Lieutenant Peary insisted
that it could, the government told him to engineer the building of the
pier himself. This he did so skillfully that he saved for the
government thirty thousand dollars.

So brilliant was this success that he was sent to Nicaragua to
engineer the survey for the Inter-Oceanic Canal. Here his experience
in equipping an expedition, and in managing half-civilized men,
further fitted him for his great work in the north land.

Prior to this time he seems never