to the long list of those who have given their lives for the advancement of human knowledge. With the opening of the present century the progress of polar exploration was rapid. Peary continued his explorations towards the north of Greenland, and, in 1906, by reaching latitude 87 deg. 6', he wrested from Nansen the coveted record of Farthest North. At the same time Captain Sverdrup (the commander of the _Fram_), the Duke of the Abruzzi and many others were carrying out scientific expeditions in polar waters. The voyage made in 1904 by Captain Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian, later on to be world-famous as the discoverer of the South Pole, is of especial interest, for he succeeded in carrying his little ship from the Atlantic to the Pacific by way of Bering Strait--the only vessel that has ever actually made the North-West Passage. But the great prize fell to Captain Peary. On September 6, 1909, the world thrilled with the announcement that Peary had reached the Pole. His ship, the _Roosevelt_, had sailed in the summer of 1908. Peary wintered at Etah in the north of Greenland, and in the ensuing year, accompanied by Captain Bartlett with five white men and {146} seventeen Eskimos, he set out to reach the Pole by sledge. By arrangement, Peary's companions accompanied him a certain distance carrying supplies, and then turned back in successive parties. The final dash for the Pole was made by the commander himself, accompanied only by a negro servant and four Eskimos. On April 6, 1909, they reached the Pole and hoisted there the flag of the United States. To make doubly certain of their discovery, Peary and his men went some ten miles beyond the Pole, and eight miles in a lateral direction. They saw nothing but ice about them, and no indication of the neighbourhood of any land. {147} BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE