“I have to-day hoisted the national ensign of the United States of America at this place, which my observations indicate to be the North Polar axis of the earth, and have formally taken possession of the entire region, and adjacent, for and in the name of the president of the United States of America. “I leave this record and United States flag in possession. “ROBERT E. PEARY, “United States Navy.” Before the hero of this very grand adventure returned to the world, there also arrived from the Arctic a certain Doctor Cook, an American traveler who claimed to have reached the Pole. The Danish Colony in Greenland received him with joy, the Danish Geographical Society welcomed him with a banquet of honor, and the world rang with his triumph. Then came Commander Peary out of the North, proclaiming that this rival was a liar. So Doctor Cook was able to strike an attitude of injured innocence, hinting that poor old Peary was a fraud; and the world rocked with laughter. In England we may have envied the glory that Peary had so bravely won for his flag and country, but knew his record too well to doubt his honor, and welcomed his triumph with no ungenerous thoughts. The other claimant had a record of impudent and amusing frauds, but still he was entitled to a hearing, and fair judgment of his claim from men of science. Among sportsmen we do not expect the runners, after a race, to call one another liars, and were sorry that Peary should for a moment lapse from the dignity expected of brave men. It is perhaps ungenerous to mention such trifling points of conduct, and yet we worship heroes only when we are quite sure that our homage is not a folly. And so we measure Peary with the standard set by his one rival, Roald Amundsen, who conquered the Northwest passage, then added to that immortal triumph the conquest of the South Pole. In that Antarctic adventure Amundsen challenged a fine British explorer, Captain Scott. The British expedition was equipped with every costly appliance wealth could furnish, and local knowledge of the actual route. The Norseman ventured into an unknown route, scantily equipped, facing the handicap of poverty. He won by sheer merit, by his greatness as a man, and by the loyal devotion he earned at the hands of his comrades. Then he returned to Norway, they say, disguised under an assumed name to escape a public triumph, and his one message to the world was a generous tribute to his defeated rival. The modern world has no greater hero, no more perfect gentleman, no finer adventurer than Roald Amundsen. XLVIII WOMEN