To make them more comfortable, Lieutenant Peary had allowed them to pitch a tent for themselves on the deck, and here the family was established, in company with their four favorite dogs, from whom they could not bear to be parted.  These dogs are very useful in the polar regions.  They can draw sledges over the ice, and are used by the natives much as the people of warmer climates use horses.

Lieutenant Peary also brought back with him some relics of the unfortunate Greely expedition which went to the Arctic regions in 1881, to establish an observation station for our Government.  Owing to the non-arrival of expected supplies, the Greely party suffered the most terrible hardships, and was eventually rescued at Cape Sabine in Grinnel Land in 1883, after eighteen of the party had perished from cold and hunger.

Greely established the station, and, after his rescue, was raised to the rank of general, and was given a special government appointment for his services.

When Lieutenant Peary arrived in New York, he was asked whether he thought that Andree had been able to reach the Pole in his balloon.

He said that he feared it had not been possible for him to do so.  According to all he could hear, the winds had been unfavorable all summer, and the chances were that the adventurer had been carried in an opposite direction to the one he had intended to take.

In regard to his being rescued and ever reaching the land of the living again, Lieutenant Peary said he feared the chances were very slight.  It all depended on the place where the balloon had descended.

If it had fallen north of Spitzbergen, it seemed unlikely that he would ever be heard of again; if, however, the winds had carried it southward, he might have taken refuge on an ice-pack, and would be floated southward with it, and eventually rescued.

Dr. Nansen, in his recent famous voyage, proved that there is a strong current flowing across the Polar Sea.  By following this, a ship could be carried from one side of the Arctic Ocean to the other.

When Dr. Nansen went north it was his hope to get his ship, the Fram, into the pack, or rough ice that was being carried along in this current, and drift with it across the Pole.

He did not succeed in reaching the Pole, but his ship did drift across the Polar Sea exactly as he had supposed it would do.

It is Mr. Peary’s belief that if Andree gets on to the pack-ice, he may drift southward as Nansen did.  Mr. Peary does not believe that any of the pigeons carried by Andree could live in the Arctic cold, and be able to fly southward with a message.

* * * * *

The fastest ocean voyage on record has just been made by the magnificent North German Lloyd steamer, Kaiser Wilhelm the Great.

The speed record has hitherto been held by the Lucania, which made the trip from Queenstown to Sandy Hook in five days and seven hours, but that great record has now been beaten.  At the rate at which the new German steamer travels, she can make the trip in four days and twenty-one hours.