Lieut. Robert E. Peary, U.S.N., having, in 1886, made a summer's reconnaissance of the Greenland ice-cap, sailed from New York 6 June 1891 in the Kite, accompanied by Mrs. Peary and his own party of five, the expedition being sustained wholly by his private resources and the assistance of a few friends. Establishing winter quarters on the eastern side of Mc Cormick Bay, lat. 78° 10', long. 69° W., the win ter was passed in preparation for the land jour ney, and on 10 April 1892, accompanied by Eivind Astrup, Peary began his attempt to cross Greenland to the northeast, which ended on 4 July at Navy Cliff, Academy Bay, lat. 83° 27', long. 61° 10', where he gained an unbroken and commanding view of the Arctic Ocean, demon strating the insularity of Greenland, an achieve ment for which he subsequently received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Collom gold medal of the American Geographical Society. Returning in 1893 with a larger party Peary established headquarters at the head of Bowdoin Bay, also an arm of Inglefield Gulf, lat. 77° 43', long. 63° 10', where, on 12 Sept. 1893, Marie Ahnighito Peary was born, and in March 1894 renewed his attempt to cross the inland ice-cap and to push his explora tions farther to the northward. An unprece dented equinoctial storm and a plague among his dogs frustrated his plans, and on 29 August the party, except Peary, Hugh J. Lee and Mat Henson, returned to the States. In the follow ing spring the three men made a successful attempt to cross again the ice-cap, though failure to recover the provisions cached the pre vious year, 120 miles from headquarters, was a serious obstacle and compelled return with only about 15 miles farther north than had been made two years before. In 1896 and 1897 Peary again visited Greenland, bringing home on the former the smaller, and on the latter voyage the larger, the 90-ton meteorite, which had been seen 70 years before by Sir James Ross at Meteor Island, near Cape Sabine, and which had furnished the natives with tools and cutting implements, and is the largest known meteor in the world. Having organized the Peary Arctic Club, of a few of his personal friends, on 4 July 1898 Peary sailed from Saint Johns, New foundland, in the Windward; wintered in her in Allman Bay, lat. 79° 10', long. 20', on the west side of Smith Sound, rectifying and re charting the whole Bache peninsular and Bu chanan Sound country, and on 1 Jan. 1899, sledging along the ice-foot, reached ort Con ger, isolated since General Greely's departure 18 years before. In June Peary pushed westward, crossing the divide of Grinnell Land, and looked down upon the open and ice-free sea beyond. Leaving his headquarters at Etah early in March 1900 and Fort Conger, 15 April, he reached "Locicwood's 8 May, and a disin tegrated pack and an open sea preventing further advance to the Pole, rounded the northern end of the Greenland archipelago, dis covering the most northern known land in the world, which he named in honor of the presi dent of the Peary Arctic Club, Cape Morris K. Jesup. Pushing his explorations southeastward to 82° 10', 61° 30' W., on 21 May Peary saw before him to the south the peaks of Independ ence Bay, which he had discovered nine years before, realized that the demonstration was complete, and that the mystery which had surrounded the northern end of Green land for a thousand years had been dis pelled. The winter of 1900-01 was passed in the field, near Lake Hazen, Grinnell Land, and on 6 May 1901 Peary joined the Windward with Mrs. Peary and Miss Peary on board, which had been ice-bound since the previous September at Payer Harbor, near Cape Sabine. Wintering at Cape Sabine, 1901-02, in February, accompanied only by Matthew Hen son and natives, Peary returned to Fort Con endeavored to attain the Pole, from Cape Hecla as a point of departure, but on 16 May, at 84 17', the highest then attained by the American flag, he was com pelled by insurmountable pressure ridges and the condition of the ice to give up the attempt, and returning to Cape Sabine he was met, 5 August, by the Windward with Mrs. Peary on board, and reached Sydney, C. B., 15 September, thus concluding 12 years of arduous and most successful work. In the spring of 1906 he suc
ceeded in reaching 87° 6' north latitude in the Roosevelt, or within about 203 miles of the north pole, thus creating another "farthest north)) record.
In 1893 Fridtjof Nansen in the Fram, spe daily constructed for the purpose, entered the ice off the northern coast of Asia and for the next three years drifted northward, one of the objects of the expedition having been to demonstrate the theory of the drift from east to west. On 12 March 1896 Nansen, accom panied by Lieutenant Tohansen, left the FO.am in lat. 84° and with dogs and sledges pushed his way over the sea ice poleward to 86° 14' on 20 May, when farther advance was impossible. Retracing his course Nansen and Johansen finally, without dogs, landed on the northern shore of Franz Josef Land, where in a hut and subsisting upon seal and walrus meat the two explorers passed the winter. While advancing southward on 12 May 1897 they were descried by Frederick Jack son from his headquarters at Cape Flora, and remained with him at his camp until his return the following summer. The Fram, under com mand of Captain Sverdrup, after Nansen's de parture, drifted still farther to the north, at taining only 18 miles less than Nansen's high est, and by almost superhuman exertion, was broken out of the ice later in the season, reach ing Tromso but a few days after Nansen. The entire party and ship returned together to Christiania, from which they had departed three years before.
Alfred C. Harmsworth (now Lord North cliffe), the English newspaper proprietor, in 1892 dispatched an expedition led by Frederick G. Jackson, with Lieut. Albert H. Armitage, R. N., second in command, to Franz Josef Land for a thorough reconnaissance of the archipel ago and an advance to the north as far as prac ticable. The Windward remained ice-bound near Jackson's headquarters at Cape Flora for the first winter, and for three succeeding sum mers visited the station with supplies and rein forcements. The work of Jackson included the chartingand mapping of a large portion of the Josef osef Land. Archipelago, though in con sequence of unfavorable conditions not attain ing a latitude higher than had been previously accomplished. Mr. Harmsworth later presented the Windward to Commander Peary.
In 1899, Prince Luigi, Duke of the Abruzzi (q.v.) in the Stella Polare, reached Teplitz Bay, Rudolf Land, where the ship was beached and winter quarters established. The following spring the sledge parties led by Capt. Umberto Cagm achieved, on 25 April, 86° 33', the highest latitude then attained by man, for which, achieve ment both the Prince and Cagni received upon their return gold medals from the Royal Italian Society and recognition by the scientific bodies of the world. Interest in these achievements is increased by the fact that during the Turco Italian War of 1912, the Duke D'Abruzzi served as commander-in-chief and Captain Cagni as admiral of a division of the fleet operating against the Tripolitan coast, the latter command ing the landing party, and both continued during the great European War, beginning in 1914, to exercise similar commands in the navy of their country. Some other attempts upon the Pole by the Franz Josef Land route have been made by Walter Wellman and Evelyn B. Bald win, the latter under the patronage of William Ziegler, whose second expedition, led by Anthony Fiala left Troms8 in July 1903.
Capt. Otto Sverdrup, of the Nansen expedi tion, sailed in 1899 to Smith Sound in the Fram, and after having been ice-bound for the winter of 1899-1900 in Rice's Strait, in the autumn of the latter year entered Jones' Sound, where he remained for the next two winters, pushing a line of the extensive exploration northward and westward by the former of which he practically determined the insularity of Grinnell Land and by the latter carrying the flag of his country to 85° 42' and definitely mapping much coast which had before been inaccurate or imaginary. Cap tain Sverdrup's surgeon, Dr. Jensen, died during the first winter in Rice's Straits, but with this exception his entire party, after a diligent and arduous three years, returned to Norway in good health (1903).