The clothing consisted of a hooded deer-skin coat weighing 5¼ lb., a hooded seal-skin coat weighing 2½ lb., a pair of dog-skin knee-trousers weighing 3-9/16 lb., seal-skin boots with woollen socks and fur soles weighing 2 lb., and an under-shirt; total, about 13 lb. With various combinations of this outfit, Peary could keep perfectly warm and yet not get into a perspiration, in temperatures from +40° F. to −50° F., whether at rest, or walking, or dragging a sledge. Peary had twenty dogs for the journey, but one died from the fatal _piblockto_, at the edge of the ice-cap. His dog-food consisted of pemmican. The provisions included pemmican, butter, Liebig extract, biscuit, condensed milk, compressed pea-soup, compressed tea, and extract of coffee. The daily ration was 2½ lb. per man. From the edge of the ice-cap the sledges had to be dragged up one snow-slope and down another for a distance of 15 miles, before reaching the gradual slope of the true Inland Ice. This point was not reached until the 15th May. Peary took a true north-east course, and hoped to clear the heads of the Humboldt, Petermann, and Sherard-Osborn indentations. From this point, two short marches of 5 and 7 miles brought them to an elevation of 5000 feet, and early in the third march the highest summits of the Whale Sound land disappeared, and they found that they were descending. They had passed over the divide between Whale Sound and Kane Basin, and were on the descent towards the basin of the Humboldt Glacier. This third march was 12 miles, and the fourth was 20, and the distant mountain-tops of the land between Rensselaer Harbour and the south-eastern angle of Humboldt Glacier rose into view in the north-west. On the fifth day they covered 20 miles over a gently undulating and gradually descending surface. On the sixth march the surface became much more hummocky, and Peary thought it advisable to deflect about 5 miles to the eastward. At the end of this march there were signs of an approaching storm, and a snow igloo was built for shelter. The storm lasted forty-eight hours, and it took a long time to dig out the sledges, which had been completely buried in snow-drifts, and reload them. Starting out from here, they found that the storm had made a good road for them, and they covered 20 miles during the first march. On the following day they again made 20 miles, and reached the point where Peary decided the supporting party should leave him. They were now 130 miles from the shore of McCormick Bay. It was here that Peary resolved to take only one companion with him. It had originally been his intention to take two, but due to a frozen heel, Henson had to be sent back to Red Cliff from the edge of the ice-cap. All three of his companions volunteered to go with him. Peary decided that Astrup should be his companion, that Gibson should return in command of the supporting party, and that, on their return to Red Cliff, Dr. Cook was to assume charge.