rain every nerve to make five marches of
fifteen miles each, crowding these marches in such a way as to bring
us to the end of the fifth long enough before noon to permit the
immediate taking of an observation for latitude."

Usually these marches were for ten or twelve hours, and the distance
covered averaged about twenty-five miles. The dangers encountered are
suggested by the following: "Near the end of the march I came upon a
lead which was just opening. It was ten yards wide directly in front
of me, but a few yards to the east was an apparently good crossing
where the single crack was divided into several. I signaled to the
sledges to hurry; then, running to the place, I had time to pick a
road across the moving ice cakes and return to help teams across
before the lead widened so as to be impassable. This passage was
effected by my jumping from one cake to another, picking the way, and
making sure that the cake would not tilt under the weight of the dogs
and the sledge, returning to the former cake where the dogs were,
encouraging the dogs ahead while the driver steered the sledge across
from cake to cake, and threw his weight from one side to the other so
that it could not overturn. We got the sledges across several cracks
so wide that while the dogs had no trouble in jumping, the men had to
be pretty active in order to follow the long sledges."

Luckily at the end of the fifth march they were less than two miles
from the pole. Should you like to know how Mr. Peary felt at this
eventful hour?

"Of course, I had many sensations that made sleep impossible for
hours, despite my utter fatigue--the sensations of a lifetime; but I
have no room for them here. The first thirty hours at the Pole were
spent in taking observations; in going some ten miles beyond our camp,
and some eight miles to the right of it; in taking photographs,
planting my flags, depositing my records, studying the horizon with my
telescope for possible land, and searching for a place to make a
sounding. Ten hours after our arrival the clouds cleared before a
light breeze from our left, and from that time until our departure on
the afternoon of April 7th the weather was cloudless and flawless. The
coldest temperature during the thirty hours was thirty-three degrees
below zero, and the warmest twelve below."

Thus it was that after the nations of the world had sent out over five
hundred expeditions in search of the North Pole, an American,
educate