Montaigne says: "For I make others to relate (not after mine own fantasy, but as it best falleth out) what I cannot so well express, either through unskill of language or want of judgment. I number not my borrowings, but I weigh them. And if I would have made their number to prevail I would have had twice as many. They are all, or almost all, of so famous and ancient names that methinks they sufficiently name themselves without me."

The "Tale" of Merkut, the daughter of Shung-hu, is the only entirely original sketch. The main incident therein has been drawn from an unpublished arctic journal that has been in the writer's possession for a quarter of a century. This character—a primitive woman, an unspoiled child of the stone age—is not alone of human interest but of special historic value. For her lovely heroic life indicates that the men and women of ages many thousands of years remote were very like in character and in nature to those of the present period.

A. W. Greely.

Washington, D. C., August, 1912.

CONTENTS

PAGE
The Loyalty of Philip Staffe to Henry Hudson[1]
Franklin's Crossing of the Barren Grounds[13]
The Retreat of Ross from the Victory[37]
The Discovery of the Northwest Passage[55]
The Timely Sledge Journey of Bedford Pim[71]
Kane's Rescue of His Freezing Shipmates[91]
How Woon Won Promotion[105]
The Angekok Kalutunah and the Starving Whites[119]
Dr. Rae and the Franklin Mystery[137]
Sonntag's Fatal Sledge Journey[155]
The Heroic Devotion of Lady Jane Franklin[169]
The Marvellous Ice-Drift of Captain Tyson[187]
The Saving of Petersen[213]
Life on an East Greenland Ice-Pack[231]
Parr's Lonely March from the Great Frozen Sea[251]
Relief of American Whalers at Point Barrow[269]
The Missionary's Arctic Trail[293]
Schwatka's Summer Search[311]
The Inuit Survivors of the Stone Age[329]
The Fidelity of Eskimo Brönlund[347]
The Wifely Heroism of Mertuk, the Daughter of Shung-Hu[367]

ILLUSTRATIONS