PEARY AND HIS CAREER.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 14013, 18 September 1909, Page 5

PEARY AND HIS CAREER.

A BORN EXPLORER. EXPERIENCES AND ACHIEVEMENTS. Robert Edwin Peary is a born loader of great and untried euterpri&cs. Ho has the faculty of filling the men under his command with a measure of his own pluck and perseverance, and inspiring his Hnancial supporters with an enthtfsiasm which has made them ready to furnish him forth time after time for those expeditions which to many seemed like forlorn hopes. It was, recognised some time ago that if familiarity with the conditions of a problem were the chief factor in its solution, Peary, with his unrivalled experience, was the man to find the Pole. He claimed that liis last attempt simplified the attainment of the Pole 50 per cent., but the readers of his book" "Nearest the Polo," know that even then the problrin was very far from simple. Something of the man's splendid faith in himself — a faith founded upon past experience, special training, mid accurate knowledge of the means with which he works — may be inferred from his statement that once and once onlj in all his Arctic career did he feel doubtful as to the outcome. That was when he led his party, in 1906, across the "Big Lead," which he renamed the "Styx." They had tested the ice, ami knew that it would not support them an instant without snowshoes. Once started, it would have been death ft) stop, or even to vary the gliding movement by lifting a foot from tho ice. After they had crossed the frail icrbridge separated in the middle. They were only just in time. One result of the Peary expeditions up to 1906 was th»t the value of Esquimau help was conclusively proved. He had combined, in • unique manner, the best resources of civilisation with the innate skill and hardihood of the most northerly tribe in existence. Commander Peary is not a young man. He was born in Pennsylvania 56 yean ago, but in all essentials he is younger than some who only date back to the 'seventies, and although the Peary Club called this last attack upon the Pole • final effort, those who know the great explorer were not at' all sure that he had abandoned the resolution which he formed some < years ago to renew the attempt again and yet again until success should crown his career. Bowdoin College, civil engineering, and the United States Navy gave him the training which prepared him for his life-work. In 1884 and 188 B.he was assistant-engineer of the Nicaragua Ship Canal under Government orders, and he wm engineer in charge of the surveys for the same canal in 1887 and 1888. He invented rolling-lock gates for canals. . «^ His first notable Arctic journey was made in 1886, when he reconnoitred in Greenland, and travelled 100 miles on the interior ice. In June, 1891, as chief of "the Arctic expedition of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, he sailed from New York in the Kite, and made his headquarters at M'Cormick Bay, on the north-west coast of Greenland. He made sledge excursions al<mg_ Whale Island, Inglefield Gulf, and Humboldt Glwner ; traversed the inland ice from M Cornuck Bay to the n6rth*ast angle of Greenland; at Independence Bay discovered and named Melville Land, and Heilprin Island. 4ying beyond Greenland; and proved Greenland to be an island. The Geographical Societies of England and Scotland, as well as that of America, awarded him medalsonhw return in 1892. He sailed again m July, 18Ud, in the Falcon, intending; to survey the north-eastern coast of Greenland and if possible to push on towards the Pole. On this yoyage he made a thorou«n study of the little tribe of Arctic Highlanders, and discovered the famous Iron Mountain, which Ross had heard of in 1818, and which proved to bo three meteorites, one of them— the largest known to exist— weighing ; W> tons. But he did not reach the Pole that time. . His fourth attempt was made under th© auspices of the Peary AretieClub. of New Yoft. Starting in 1898, he made his winter quarters at Efah, and established caches of supplies as far as Fort Conger. In the spring of 1900 he set out from Fort Conaer and raceu the northern limit of the Greenland Archipelago. named the northern cape, which ww supposed to bo the most northerly land in the world <83defc 50min N.), Cape Norris K. Jessup, after The president of the Peary ArcticClub. He returned in 1902. The expedition of. 1905^1906, in the s.s Roosevelt, was notable for the attainment of the record latitude of 87 deg. 6min. on April 21, 1906. MRS. PEARY IN THE ARCTIC. Commander Peary's wife is worthy of him. Twice «he has accompanied him on his' Polar expeditions as far as Ins winter quarters, and twice she has gone far .north to meet him when returning.

She was the tirst white woman to ■wintor with an Arctic expedition, and their little daughter Marie was the most northerly born white child in the world.