The North Pole | Page 3

NORTH POLE ESKIMOS 295 EGINGWAH SEARCHING THE HORIZON FOR LAND 298 PEARY SEARCHING THE HORIZON FOR LAND 298 LOOKING TOWARD CAPE CHELYUSKIN 299 LOOKING TOWARD SPITZBERGEN 299 LOOKING TOWARD CAPE COLUMBIA 299 LOOKING TOWARD BERING STRAIT 299 ATTEMPTED SOUNDING, APRIL 7, 1909 302 ACTUAL SOUNDING, FIVE MILES SOUTH OF THE POLE, APRIL 7, 1909, 1500 FATHOMS (9000 ft.) NO BOTTOM 303 SWINGING AN ICE CAKE ACROSS A LEAD TO FORM AN IMPROMPTU BRIDGE 308 PASSING OVER THE BRIDGE 309 SOUNDING 312 BREAKING CAMP. PUSHING THE SLEDGES UP TO THE TIRED DOGS 312 LAST CAMP ON THE ICE ON THE RETURN 313 BACK ON THE "GLACIAL FRINGE" 313 APPROACHING THE PEAKS OF CAPE COLUMBIA OVER THE SURFACE OF THE "GLACIAL FRINGE" 318 CRANE CITY AT CAPE COLUMBIA, ON THE RETURN 318 EGINGWAH BEFORE STARTING ON THE SLEDGE TRIP 319 EGINGWAH AFTER THE RETURN FROM THE TRIP 319 OOTAH BEFORE STARTING ON THE SLEDGE TRIP 319 OOTAH AFTER THE RETURN FROM THE SLEDGE TRIP 319 PERMANENT MONUMENT ERECTED AT CAPE COLUMBIA TO MARK POINT OF DEPARTURE AND RETURN OF NORTH POLE SLEDGE PARTY 324 PEARY CAIRN AT CAPE MORRIS K. JESUP AS PHOTOGRAPHED BY MACMILLAN AND BORUP 325 MEMORIAL ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF PROFESSOR ROSS G. MARVIN AT CAPE SHERIDAN 325 THE SPECIAL GREAT GOLD MEDAL OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 364 THE SPECIAL GREAT GOLD MEDAL OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON 365
NOTE.--The general plan of illustration is based on an unusually close adherence to the negatives, as giving more interesting and valuable results. Many of the most important pictures are from photographs not retouched in the least, e.g., those facing pages 270, 284, 290, etc. In others the sky-line has been indicated, e.g., those facing pages 208, 271, 299 (top), etc.; but change of no other sort has been made except to remove specks and other similar mechanical defects not widely extended. The color-plates are, of course, exceptions requiring special treatment. THE PUBLISHERS

FOREWORD
The struggle for the North Pole began nearly one hundred years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock, being inaugurated (1527) by that king of many distinctions, Henry VIII of England.
In 1588 John Davis rounded Cape Farewell, the southern end of Greenland, and followed the coast for eight hundred miles to Sanderson Hope. He discovered the strait which bears his name, and gained for Great Britain what was then the record for the farthest north, 72° 12′, a point 1128 miles from the geographical North Pole. Scores of hardy navigators, British, French, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, and Russian, followed Davis, all seeking to hew across the Pole the much-coveted short route to China and the Indies. The rivalry was keen and costly in lives, ships, and treasure, but from the time of Henry VIII for three and one-half centuries, or until 1882 (with the exception of 1594-1606, when, through Wm. Barents, the Dutch held the record), Great Britain's flag was always waving nearest the top of the globe.
The same year that Jamestown was founded, Henry Hudson (1607), also seeking the route to the Indies, discovered Jan Mayen, circumnavigated Spitzbergen, and advanced the eye of man to 80° 23′. Most valuable of all, Hudson brought back accounts of great multitudes of whales and walruses, with the result that for the succeeding years these new waters were thronged with fleets of whaling ships from every maritime nation. The Dutch specially profited by Hudson's discovery. During the 17th and 18th centuries they sent no less than 300 ships and 15,000 men each summer to these arctic fisheries and established on Spitzbergen, within the Arctic Circle, one of the most remarkable summer towns the world has ever known, where stores and warehouses and reducing stations and cooperages and many kindred industries flourished during the fishing season. With the approach of winter all buildings were shut up and the population, numbering several thousand, all returned home.
Hudson's record remained unequaled for 165 years, or until 1773, when J. C. Phipps surpassed his farthest north by twenty-five miles. To-day the most interesting fact connected with the Phipps expedition is that Nelson, the hero of Trafalgar and of the Battle of the Nile, then a lad of fifteen, was a member of the party. Thus the boldest and strongest spirits of the most adventurous and hardy profession of those days sought employment in the contest against the frozen wilderness of the north.
The first half of the 19th century witnessed many brave ships and gallant men sent to the arctic regions. While most of these expeditions were not directed against the Pole so much as sent in an endeavor to find a route to the Indies round North America--the Northwest Passage--and around Asia--the Northeast Passage--many of them are intimately interwoven with the conquest of the Pole, and were a necessary part