The New Student's Reference Work/Peary, Robert Edwin
Peary, Rear Admiral, Robert Edwin, discoverer of the North Pole, was born at Cresson, Pa., May 6, 1856. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1877. He entered the U. S. Navy as a civil engineer Oct. 26, 1881. For several years he was engaged in surveys connected with the Nicaragua Ship Canal, but in 1886 made a trip to Greenland (q. v.). In 1891-2 his crossing of Greenland's northeastern corner was one of the most remarkable sledge-journeys ever made. He showed that the eastern and western coasts meet; discovered Melville and Heilprin Lands; made a second expedition to North Greenland, 1893-95; Arctic summer voyages, 1896, 1897; discovered and secured the Cape York meteorities, the largest in the world; in 1900 determined Greenland's northern limit by rounding it; demonstrated that for a considerable distance northward and northeastward there is no land and showed the origin of floebergs and paleocrystic ice. During his 1905-6 expedition he left his ship at 82°27′ N., and made a sledge-trip to 87°6′ N., 200.36 miles from the pole, the most northerly point yet reached. Sailing from New York in July 1908 he wintered at Cape Sheridan, Grant Land. Feb. 15, 1909 he started with a sledge train for the pole. On April 6, the pole was reached, the crowning triumph of twenty-three years of heroic effort. Returning he reached Indiana Harbor, Sept. 6, and announced by wireless “Stars and Stripes nailed to North Pole.” He was made rear admiral and received the thanks of congress. In 1913 he was made grand officer of the Legion d'Honneur, by the president of France.
Peary wrote Northward Over the Great Ice, Nearest the Pole, The North Pole, and Snowland Folk.
His wife wrote, My Arctic Journal, The Snow Baby, and Children of the Arctic. (See Polar Exploration.)
THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH POLE
REAR ADMIRAL ROBERT E. PEARY
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