The Work Of Peary

What the Intrepid Explorer Has Accomplished.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF GREENLAND.

Important Additions to the World's Knowledge of the Northernmost Land -- The Track of Polar Arctic Explorers Strewn With Graves. Some of Those Who Have Perished In the Search For the Pole.

While Lieutenant Peary, who has just returned from what he declares to be his "last dash for the pole," failed to reach the goal of his ambition, it is believed he has contributed as much to the fund of knowledge about the frozen north and sacrificed as much in the cause as any living arctic explorer. The most northerly point reached was 84 degrees 17 minutes, northwest of Cape Hecla, which is farther north than any other American explorer has penetrated.

Lieutenant Peary brought back with him perhaps the most interesting collection of curios ever taken from the far north, which includes Eskimo canoes, sledges and implements of all kinds, a musk ox, a walrus, ten of the dogs which dragged Peary's sledges over many a weary mile of ice, and a hundred other curios, large and small.

The Natural History museum will reap a rich harvest as the fruit of Peary's labors, for he has skins and skeletons of all the animals which are hunted in the barren regions. The rarest of these is the two horned narwhal, the original of the unicorn. The only specimen which has ever been seen with two horns was shot by one of Peary's Eskimos at Cape Sabine.

In the past four years Lieutenant Peary has added a good deal to geographical knowledge, surveying the northern limit of the Greenland archipelago so that it may be mapped and completing the task of determining the shape and extent of Greenland, in progress since the Norsemen discovered it nearly 1,000 years ago. His part in the whole includes the survey of a part of the unknown coast of Melville bay on the west coast, the determination of the extreme northwest coast and of the entire north and northeast coasts as far south as Independence bay and the rectification of earlier surveys, making important changes in mapping the long, narrow channel leading through Smith sound to the part of the Arctic ocean washing the northern shores of Greenland. In addition to his coast work he has traveled 2,400 miles on the inland ice cap, defining its northern termination, and has twice cross Grinnell Land, extending farther south the mapping of its western shores. He will henceforth be known as the pioneer in extreme northern lands, the one who went beyond Ultima Thule, as the ancients called the northernmost inhabitable portions of the earth.

The Duke of the Abruzzi holds the record for approaching nearest the pole. He reached latitude 86 degrees 33 minutes north. This was in item in the assorted news of the world which was sent to Peary by the Windward on its voyage to bring him home. Peary's point in latitude 84 degrees 17 minutes is still this side of Nansen's "farthest north," which was 86 degrees 14 minutes. It had been expected that if Peary reached the eighty-fourth or eighty-fifth parallel that he would surely accomplish another five degrees in safety.

The record of the search for the pole is a record of suffering and death. It has been going on with longer or shorter interruptions for 650 years. In some generations it has been absolutely ignored, while in others the desire to discover the pole and learn its secrets has amounted to a public passion.

The number of deaths, however, has been comparatively small, amounting to fewer than 1,000. Every man of them, however, was a picked man and a hero. Their graves are scattered all along the cold trail. Some have been despoiled by huge burgomaster gulls, while others remain inviolate as when left by saddened comrades of the dead.

On Cape Sabine is the solitary grave of Professor August Sonntag, the astronomer, genius of the Hays expedition of 1860. Two bones and a skull, whitened by long exposure, are all that remain of this hero.

On Littleton island, not far from the grave of Professor Sonntag, is that of Christian Ohlsen, who was buried here by Dr. Kane's expedition in 1853. Two other members of Kane's expedition died while the Advance was wintered at Fern rock. They lie buried in the little observatory there.

On the west side of Smith sound, at Baird inlet, George W. Rice of the Lady Franklin bay expedition is buried in the ice. Five sailors of the Sir John Franklin expedition are also buried in the ice on Cape Sabine.

The grave of Captain Charles Francis Hall is marked with a brass tablet. It is near Thank God harbor, where he died Nov. 8, 1871.

Wherever arctic expeditions have been they have left in their trails isolated graves of comrades who have died of exposure or have been killed by falling over icy cliffs.