With the work of most of these expeditions we need not concern ourselves at all. It was of a purely scientific nature, and the curious may find it all set forth in the thirty-one quarto volumes of the International Polar Scientific Publications, a set which contains by far the greatest collection of scientific Arctic data extant. The only party of the fifteen which we need follow, indeed, is that which America sent out, under the command of Lieutenant A. W. Greely, to establish a station in Lady Franklin Bay, on the east coast of Grinnell Land, in the district visited by Nares in 1875. The plan of the expedition, briefly put, was as follows: Greely, who was a lieutenant in the Signalling Department of the United States Army, was to sail on the _Proteus_, a sealer of 467 tons, with a party of twenty-five, in the spring of 1881. The _Proteus_ was to make direct for Lady Franklin Bay, where he was to land the expedition and then return home. It was arranged that a vessel should visit the station with supplies in 1882 and again in 1883. In the event of her being prevented from reaching the headquarters of the party, she was to _cache_ quantities of supplies on the east coast of Grinnell Land, and to establish a depot on Littleton Island. If no vessel succeeded in reaching Lady Franklin Bay in 1882, the ship sent out in 1883 was to remain in Smith Sound so long as the conditions permitted, and, before leaving, was to land a party with everything necessary for a winter’s stay on Littleton Island. It was hoped that thus the safety of Greely and his men would be assured. Unfortunately, it seems that the cabinet minister who was responsible for the equipment of the party was not too well disposed towards it. The funds placed at its disposal were quite inadequate, with the result that Greely was obliged to exercise the most rigid economy in purchasing his stores, while, owing to a number of vexatious and quite unnecessary delays in the delivery of papers and so forth, he had to rush through his final preparations in an inconveniently short space of time. Eventually, however, the equipment was completed on an adequate, but by no means liberal scale, and the _Proteus_ set sail from St John’s, Newfoundland, on July 7, 1881. It was not until she reached Hall Basin, and when she was actually in sight of her destination, that she was first delayed by ice. Fortunately, however, she was equipped with steam, so that she soon charged her way through the barrier and landed the members of the expedition in Discovery Harbour, the place finally selected for their headquarters.