Every book bearing on the subject in the library of his native city, was eagerly read, and his enthusiasm infected some of the wealthy citizens, who gathered for his use a very considerable collection of volumes.

Mastering all the literature of the Arctic, he determined to undertake himself the arduous work of the explorer.

Taking passage on a whaler, he spent several years among the Esquimaux, living in their crowded and fetid _igloos_, devouring the blubber and uncooked fish that form their staple articles of diet, wearing their garb of furs, learning to navigate the treacherous kayak in tossing seas, to direct the yelping, quarreling team of dogs over fields of ice as rugged as the edge of some monstrous saw, studying the geography so far as known of the Arctic regions, perfecting himself in all the arts by which man has contested the supremacy of that land with the ice-king.

In 1870, with the assistance of the American Geographical Society, Hall induced the United States Government to fit him out an expedition to seek the North Pole--the first exploring party ever sent out with that definite purpose.

The steamer "Polaris," a converted navy tug, which General Greely says was wholly unfit for Arctic service, was given him, and a scientific staff supplied by the Government, for though Hall had by painstaking endeavor qualified himself to lead an expedition, he had not enjoyed a scientific education.
Neither was he a sailor like DeLong, nor a man trained to the command of men like Greely.