With one companion, Astrup, he had ascended to the summit of the great ice cap which covers the interior of Greenland, 5,000 to 8,000 feet in elevation, and had pushed northward for 500 miles over a region where no white man had ever been before. The temperature was from 10 degrees to 50 degrees below zero. On July 4th., 1892, he discovered Independence Bay, and found a valley nearby, which was radiant with gorgeous flowers and was alive with murmuring bees. Here also were many musk-oxen, browsing lazily upon the long, rank grasses. The explorer now determined to spend his life in an attempt to reach the Pole, which lay 396 geographical miles farther north than any man had yet penetrated on the western hemisphere. He was convinced that the only way to eventually reach his goal was by adopting the manner of life, the food, the snowhouses, and the clothing of the Eskimos, who had learned how to combat the rigors of Arctic weather by centuries of experience. He must also utilize the game of the northland, the walrus, the musk-oxen, and the reindeer, in order to keep his men in fit condition and of good temper when the long winter night came upon them. Lastly he must train the Eskimos so that they should become his sledging crew. The first north polar expedition lasted for four years, from 1898 to 1902, and Peary failed to get nearer than 343 miles of the Pole. Each year dense packs of ice blocked his passage to the polar ocean and he was compelled to make his base 700 miles from the Pole, or 200 miles south of the headquarters of Nares, from which point he could reach the Pole in one season. But during this period, he explored and mapped hundreds of miles of the coastline of Greenland and of the islands to the west and north. The navigator and explorer now designed and constructed the _Roosevelt_, a boat built to withstand the crush of the masses of ice, and with this he battled a way to the desired haven upon the shores of the polar sea. From this place he made a wonderful march to the point 87° 6´, or nearer to the Pole than any man had ever been. He would have reached the Pole, this time, but winds of excessive fury opened great leads and robbed him of the prize and nearly of his own life. This was in 1906. Commander Peary was now resolved to make his next advance upon the Pole by the same route as he had just used. His previous efforts had been financed by Mr. Morris K. Jessup, whose interest in Polar explorations, and faith in Peary, made him willing at all times to furnish whatever money the Commander required. But the kind Mr. Jessup was now dead and the explorer knew that he would have a difficult time to raise the funds to equip another expedition.