With fresh dogs Peary and the Eskimo were soon galloping over hard ice toward Cape York. After a long journey the Eskimo conducted Peary to the great brown mass.
He told Peary that his people believed that the iron mass had been an Eskimo woman, who with her dog and her tent was hurled from the sky by the Evil Spirit. One of the great piles used to look like the figure of a woman in a sitting position, but the natives had chipped off many pieces of it and carried them away. They used these pieces of iron for making knives and for harpoon points.
One tribe attempted to carry off the entire head. They lashed it to a sledge and started for home, when suddenly the sea rose with a loud noise, and the head disappeared into the water, carrying the sledge and dogs with it. The Eskimos barely escaped with their lives, and since that time not the smallest fragment of the heavenly woman had been disturbed.
Near the great mass of iron, called “the woman,” was another, called “the dog.” About six miles south of these was the third and largest, called “the tent.”
The “Tent” Meteorite.
The coast where these meteorites were found is the bleakest and most desolate region of the Arctic land. Biting winds blow almost continuously, and iceberg after iceberg drifts slowly past on its journey southward. It is almost impossible for a vessel to reach this coast.
Notwithstanding the difficulty and danger of the work, Peary succeeded in bringing all of these meteorites to New York. Those known as “the woman” and “the dog” reached New York in 1895, and on October 2, 1897, the Hope deposited the one known as “the tent” at the Brooklyn navy yard. This weighs ninety tons and is the largest known meteorite in the world.
Peary’s two trips across Greenland are classed among the most brilliant geographical feats of recent years. His efforts extended the exploration of the east coast of Greenland two degrees.