CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 1818 9 III. FRANKLIN’S FIRST LAND JOURNEY. 1819–1821 14 IV. FRANKLIN’S SECOND LAND JOURNEY. 1825–1827 21 V. THE _EREBUS_ AND THE _TERROR_. 1845 25 VI. ELISHA KENT KANE. 1853 32 VII. WINTER IN RENSSELAER HARBOR. 1853–1854 36 VIII. THE ESKIMOS. 1854 40 IX. HUNTING IN THE ICY NORTH 45 X. HOME AGAIN. 1855 51 XI. NORDENSKJÖLD AND THE NORTHEAST PASSAGE. 1878–1879 59 XII. VOYAGE OF THE _JEANNETTE_. 1879–1881 72 XIII. GREELY IN GRINNELL LAND. 1881–1883 81 XIV. FARTHEST NORTH OF THE GREELY PARTY. 1882 87 XV. LIEUTENANT SCHWATKA IN ALASKA. 1883 94 XVI. NANSEN CROSSES GREENLAND. 1888 104 XVII. THE VOYAGE OF THE _FRAM_. 1893–1896 122 XVIII. PEARY CROSSES GREENLAND. 1891–1897 133 XIX. ANDRÉE’S BALLOON EXPEDITION TO THE POLE. 1897 149 XX. EXPEDITIONS OF 1902 154 XXI. DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH POLE BY ROBERT E. PEARY. 1909 158 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Map of the North Polar Regions The Aurora Borealis Sebastian Cabot The Earth on June 21 The Earth on December 21 Daily Motion of the Heavens as seen at the North Pole Daily Motion of the Heavens as seen at the Equator The Midnight Sun The Change of Seasons Sir John Franklin Glacier, English Bay, Spitzbergen A Ship in the Ice Pack Icebergs in the Polar Sea A Post of the Hudson Bay Company In Winter Quarters Relics of the Franklin Expedition Elisha Kent Kane Fiskernaes, Greenland An Eskimo Dog Team Eskimos and their Dogs Interior of an Eskimo Hut A Walrus Hunt A Herd of Seals Polar Bears Traveling over the Ice Hummocks Dragging the Boats over the Ice Floes Upernavik, Greenland A Greenlander in his Kayak Samoyed Huts in Summer A Samoyed Family in Winter Costume The “Vega” firing a Salute at Cape Tcheliuskin, the Most Northern Point of the Old World Tchuktche and Reindeer Tchuktche Man and Woman Hunting Reindeer The “Jeannette” in the Ice Pack Bird Cliffs Musk Ox An Arctic Snowstorm Sitka, Alaska, in 1880 Crossing the Coast Range Tanana Station, River Yukon, in Winter The Raft on which a Journey of Thirteen Hundred and Three Miles was made A Man on Ski Fridtjof Nansen A Herd of Reindeer Nansen’s Camp on the Drift Ice