On Tuesday Commander Peary was entertained at luncheon at the
Royal Societies Club. He said that twenty-four years ago he started North for the first time, and he had made eight separate expeditions. Referring to his discovery of the North Pole, he said that nothing but the knowledge acquired during so many years had enabled him to succeed. He had slowly learned " the meaning of the dog, the meaning of the sledge, the meaning of the Eskimo, the meaning of food." Yet he could not have succeeded if he had not had some luck. It was his good fortune that no winds blew at right angles to his course. Such winds would have opened cracks in the ice before and behind him. The speed of his return journey was due to the fact that his supporting party kept the trail open. At a great meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in the Albert Hall on Wednesday evening he gave a fuller account of his expedition. He said that when he reached the Pole "a dense lifeless pall hung overhead; the horizon was black, and the ice a ghastly chalky white with no relief." There was no sign of land or of land clouds. At the end of the lecture Commander Peary was given the special gold medal of the Society, and Captain Bartlett, Commander Peary's English companion, received a replica of it in silver.
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