LAST DAYS AT CAPE SHERIDAN
It is not long now to the end of the story. On returning to the Roosevelt I learned that MacMillan and the doctor had reached the ship March 21, Borup on April 11, the Eskimo survivors of Marvin's party April 17, and Bartlett on April 24. MacMillan and Borup had started for the Greenland coast, before my return, to deposit caches for me, in the event that I should be obliged by the drifting of the ice to come back that way, as in 1906. (Borup, on his return to the land, had deposited a cache for me at Cape Fanshawe Martin, on the Grant Land coast, some eighty miles west from Cape Columbia, thus providing for a drift in either direction.)
PERMANENT MONUMENT ERECTED AT CAPE COLUMBIA TO
MARK POINT OF DEPARTURE AND RETURN OF NORTH POLE SLEDGE PARTY
Borup also, with the aid of the Eskimos, built at Cape Columbia a permanent monument, consisting of a pile of stones formed round the base of a guidepost made of sledge planks, with four arms pointing true north, south, east, and west—the whole supported and guyed by numerous strands of heavy sounding wire. On each arm is a copper plate, with an inscription punched in it. On the eastern arm is, "Cape Morris K. Jesup, May 16, 1900, 275 miles;" on the southern arm is, "Cape Columbia, June 6, 1906;" on the western arm is, "Cape Thomas H. Hubbard, July 1, 1906, 225 miles;" on the northern arm, "North Pole, April 6, 1909, 413 miles." Below these arms, in a frame covered with glass to protect it from the weather, is a record containing the following:
PEARY ARCTIC CLUB NORTH POLE EXPEDITION, 1908
|
S. S. Roosevelt, June 12th, 1909. This monument marks the point of departure and return of the sledge expedition of the Peary Arctic Club, which in the spring of 1909 attained the North Pole. The members of the expedition taking part in the sledge work were Peary, Bartlett, Goodsell, Marvin,[3] MacMillan, Borup, Henson. The various sledge divisions left here February 28th and March 1st, and returned from March 18th to April 23rd. The Club's Steamer Roosevelt wintered at C. Sheridan, 73 miles east of here. R. E. Peary, U. S. N. | Commander, R. E. Peary, U. S. N., Comdg. Expedition. Captain R. A. Bartlett, Master of Roosevelt. Chief Engr. George A. Wardwell. Surgeon J. W. Goodsell. Prof. Ross G. Marvin, Assistant. Prof. D. B. McMillan, " George Borup, " M. A. Henson, " Charles Percy, Steward. Mate Thomas Gushue. Bosun John Connors. Seaman John Coadey. " John Barnes. " Dennis Murphy. " George Percy. 2nd Engr. Banks Scott. Fireman James Bently. Patrick Joyce. Patrick Skeans. John Wiseman. |
On the 18th MacMillan and Borup with five Eskimos and six sledges had departed for the Greenland coast to establish depots of supplies in case my party should be obliged to make its landing there as in 1906, and also to make tidal readings at Cape Morris Jesup. I, therefore, at once started two Eskimos off for Greenland with a sounding apparatus and a letter informing MacMillan and Borup of our final success. It had been the plan to have Bartlett make a line of ten or five mile soundings from Columbia to Camp No. 8 to bring out the cross section of the continental shelf and the deep channel along it, and Bartlett had got his equipment ready for this purpose. However, I decided not to send him for the reason that he was not in the best physical condition, his feet and ankles being considerably swollen, while he was, moreover, afflicted with a number of Job's comforters. My own physical condition, however, remained perfect during the rest of our stay in the north, with the exception of a bad tooth from which I suffered more or less torture during a space of three weeks.