publicly declared his plans for attaining the Pole. Windward and Hope, her auxiliary, left for the north in July, parted off Etah August 12th, and for more than a year nothing was heard. In the meantime the Peary Arctic Club was organized, Morris K. Jesup elected its president, and the inspiration and capital were provided which have continued unabated until the present time, and without which the enterprise would have been an early and hopeless failure. Diana brought home news in '89 of Windward's imprisonment near Cape Hawks; of Peary's midnight, midwinter march through Fort Conger and his narrow escape from complete disablement by the loss of seven toes; of his reconnoissance to the west coast of Grinnell Land, and left him abundantly provisioned and equipped for the great advance which he hoped to make in the spring of 1900. Windward went north that summer but did not return, and in 1901, Erik was dispatched for information of the past two years. And she found it in abundance. Peary in the spring of 1900 had rounded the northern coast of Greenland, determining definitely its northern and eastern limit, had discovered the highest northern land on the globe, to which he had given the name of Cape Morris K. Jesup, and on which he in a cairn had deposited the flag of his country, and more important in the larger sense of the situation, had definitely eliminated Greenland as a possible route to the Pole and removed the difficult and dangerous crossing of Lincoln Sea from the obstacle to be overcome. The spoil of the expedition included the sextant abandoned at Cape Britannia by Lieutenant, now Admiral, Sir Lewis Beaumont, R. N., of the Nares-Markham 1876-7 expedition; Lockwood and Brainard's original record in their highest north cairn and all the personal effects, diaries, photographs, and souvenirs of the members of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition left at Fort Conger, all of which without exception were returned to their rightful owners by the Peary Arctic Club.

In 1902, Peary, having wintered at Cape Sabine, made another attempt on the Pole, directly north from Cape Hecla, and attained the highest-84 degrees, 17 minutes -ever reached on the western hemisphere, the highest ever reached by America, but the ice pressure ridges proved absolutely

impassable. Barriers, often a hundred feet or more in height, blocked the way, and rather than imperil life in a hopeless effort Peary retraced his steps in good order and, met at Cape Sabine by the rebuilt Windward, arrived at Sydney, September 12th, after an absence of over four years.

Hardly was he on his native heath again, however, than the master spirit reasserted itself. In September, 1903, leave of absence for five years was granted by Acting Secretary Darling; the Roosevelt was launched at Bucksport, Me., March, 1905, and she sailed from New York July 17th, the best built craft that ever crossed the Arctic circle. His last words to the secretary of the Peary Arctic Club dated Etah, North Greenland, August 15, 1905, were "We go out in a few hours to tackle the proposition you know so well. Take care of yourself." Three days later, the auxiliary Erik put out of Foulke Fjord, homeward bound, having first sent a party to climb the lofty hills, circling it on the east, who returned reporting that as far as they could see to the north well into the Kane Basin and across Smith Sound to Cape Hawks in the northwest, there was nothing of the Roosevelt, neither smoke nor spars against the sky, which hope and desire interpreted to mean that she was successfully making her way northward to Lady Franklin Bay.

Nansen left Christiana, Norway, August 10, 1893, in the Fram, designed and built to demonstrate the drift of Arctic currents, and returned in September, 1896, having effected this purpose. The results of the three years in the ice are even yet coming from the press, and form one of the most valuable contributions to the scientific knowledge of the zone. For Nansen is first a scientist, a naturalist, then an explorer, and lately a diplomat, whose merit both his sovereign and his country delight to recognize. Incidentally, of course, Nansen had designs on the Pole, and when, in the spring of 1904, it began to be obvious that the apex of the globe would not be reached by drift, he left the Fram and accompanied by Lieutenant Johansen with dogs and sledges, traveled twenty days northward to within two hundred and seventy-nine miles of the Pole, a point to within eighteen miles of which, however, the Fram, by a strange and not altogether agreeable coincidence, subsequently drifted.

Nansen and Johansen made a plucky and perilous retreat, part of the way in sledges and part in boats; wintered on the north of the Franz Josef Archipelago in a hut built by themselves, often sleeping twentytwo hours out of the twenty-four, and in the following May fell into the fortunate and hospitable hands of Mr. Jackson, finishing his third year at Cape Flora, under the patronage of Sir Alfred Harmsworth. As the circumstances of that strange meeting have never been published, possibly this may be a good place. Armitage, second in command, and holding a like commission under Scott, in the Discovery, was looking aimlessly with the glasses one morning up and down the coast line, when he suddenly caught sight of a black, moving object and a little later believed he could make out two. Reporting to Mr. Jackson that he thought he saw men in the distance, the commander laughed at him and scouted the idea. By and by, however, the fact that the objects moved and were approaching became indisputable, and then Armitage asked permission to go and meet the strangers, a courtesy belonging to him by right of discovery, but was peremptorily refused.

Hardly had Nansen's arrival at Hammerfest been reported, when by one of those dramatic coincidences always happening in polar work, the sturdy Fram and her everfaithful navigator, Sverdrup, steamed into Tronjhem harbor, and the comrades of three years, after more than twelve months' separation, were reunited, and the most brilliant Arctic voyage of these days concluded. The joy and the honors at the public reception a few days later at Christiana were justly divided between Nansen and his navigator, to whose skill, patience and daring the safety of the Fram, and particularly the final extraction from the ice, were largely due. Nansen had demonstrated his theory of the Arctic drift from east to west, and the contribution to human knowledge concerning the laws of nature in the north was important and conclusive. Every man of Nansen's party returned, and the expedition enjoyed almost perfect immunity from illness or accident.

Prince Luigi of Savoy, Duke of the Abruzzi, who earned his spurs as an Alpinist by coming to America and climbing Mt. St. Elias in Alaska in 1896, and who last summer repeated in the tropics his exploits

of the Arctic by ascending the highest peak of Ruwenzori, the fabled equatorial Mountains of the Moon, landed in Teplitz Bay, Franz Josef Land, 1899; his ship, the Stella Polare-a Norwegian whaler refitted for the work, not long after followed him ashore, and lay high and dry on the beach all winter. With the leader were Savoyard guides and comrades of the service, some of whom had been with him in Alaska. In the spring of 1900 Captain Umberto Cagni was made leader of the Northern Advance Party an injury to his hand having partially disabled the Duke—and on May 19th he had the satisfaction of recording 86 degrees, 33 minutes north, which for six years was the highest attained. One party of three perished on the return, and the main body, losing its way, narrowly escaped death from starvation.

Otto Sverdrup, Nansen's navigator, took out the Fram in 1898, in a polar quest by the Smith Sound route, and wintering in Rice Strait, just west of Bedford Pin Island, turned south and westward into Jones Sound in the fall of 1899. In 1902 he returned with a rich tale of discovery, hundreds of miles of new coasts, important islands charted-all the result of hard and faithful work, an expedition which has received less recognition than it merits, but which for actual results, both in loyal cooperation of every member with the leader and with each other, and in solid achievements of real value, sets a standard which may well be emulated and will not soon be duplicated.

Second to none in daring is the Northwest Passage of Roald Amundsen and his seventy-ton Gjoa in three years from Christiana, Norway, having demonstrated that for which Henry Hudson gave his life. But the Northwest Passage was only a part and the smaller part of Amundsen's undertaking. Navigator of the Belgian Antarctic expedition, in which he proved himself most competent, Amundsen immediately upon its return took in the Hamburg observatory a course of thorough study in magnetism-preparation for an attempt to rediscover and definitely locate the north magnetic pole. This scientific errand was the main object of his expedition, with the Northwest Passage as an ultimate possibility. It was, therefore, doubly gratifying in December,

1905, to have Amundsen wire from Eagle City, Alaska, the news of his arrival overland from Herschel Island, where he had left the Gjoa in winter quarters, and include also the welcome confirmation of an earlier report that his quest of the north magnetic pole has been completely successful. Publication of the scientific results of Amundsen's expedition await his return to Christiana.

Other Arctic expeditions of the last ten years which deserve mention, but which for one reason or another have proved disappointing or unfruitful, are Andre's attempt in 1897 to reach the Pole by balloon from Spitzbergen-neither he nor his two companions having again been heard of; explorations of the New Siberian islands by Baron Tell, the Russian, which likewise cost him his life, and the two Ziegler expeditions to Franz Josef Land-that of 1901 led by Baldwin, and of 1903-5 by Fiala.

To complete the record, mention should be made of the American Wellman's Franz Josef Land (1899) and of the three East Greenland expeditions; the Swedish Nathorst and the Danish Amdrup in 1899 and the French Duke of Orleans in 1905, the last of which carried the known coast to the north of Cape Bismarck-which is probably an island-to a new headland, named in honor of the royal house, Cape Bourbon.

Three expeditions are now in the Arctic, each in new fields, of which it is, of course, too early to speak, except in anticipation. North of Alaska is a great unknown sea, confidently believed to contain an important land mass. Ejnar Mikkelson, lieutenant in the Danish Navy, a member of the Ziegler-Baldwin expedition, with funds from the Royal and American Geographical Societies and the English Duchess of Bedford-in honor of whom his ship is named— with two American comrades will attempt to explore this area, and if all goes well to return in the spring of 1908 by way of Wrangel Island and Baring Strait, with a definite solution of the greatest uncharted area of the north. To the eastward, but with designs to the northward in Mikkelsen's field, is Mr. A. H. Harrison, who last year made a long journey along the coast east from the Mackenzie delta, and who aims to clear up much that is unknown

concerning the sub-Arctic Canadian Archipelago while on the east coast of Greenland, and Mylius Erichsen has established a station from which he expects to map all the coast yet unexplored between Cape Bourbon and Peary's Independence Bay, with ultimate designs on the Pole and a traverse of the Greenland ice cap south of Peary's track and in the opposite direction, i.e., from the east to some of the Danish settlements on the west coast.

Turning now from north to south, from Arctic to Antarctic, a great and auspicious change is apparent. Expeditions, financed, managed, and led by individual tests of endurance and quests of adventure are contrasted with those enjoying protection of the foremost geographical and scientific societies, recognized by governments and by royalty and in one or two instances aided by definite grants of the public funds. Great Britain and France have advanced in the beginning of the twentieth century the outposts of Ross and D'Urville of the first quarter of the nineteenth, and Sweden, Germany, and Scotland have won first and high honors in the Antarctic, while Argentina leads all the republics of her continent in work in the southern polar field. The

change in the situation is essential-really deeper than it appears on the surface. The day of individuals and personal demonstration has been succeeded by that of system and organization-that of alliance and cooperation, which prevails the world over in every department of scientific research and extension of exact knowledge.

To De Gerlache, the Belgian, must unquestionably be given the honor of the Antarctic renaissance. The Royal Geographical Society, like other large bodies, moves slowly, and though Sir Clements Markham, its president, and president of the International Geographical Congress in London in 1895, speaking under the influence of the enthusiasm of Borchgrevink's liberal story of his landing on the Antarctic continent the year before, urged that an expedition should be dispatched to the south, it was the zealous, patient, indefatigable Belgian who finally got off his little Belgica from Antwerp in August, 1897, with a slender equipment and a small scientific staff, joined at Rio Janeiro two months later by an American surgeon. Nearly two years after, De Gerlache and all but Danco of his staff, returned richly laden both with experience and scientific material. First of