No plan could have been better devised--none ever failed more utterly.
Arctic travel is an enigma, and it is an enigma never to be solved twice in the same way.

Whalers, with the experience of a lifetime in the frozen waters, agree that the lessons of one voyage seldom prove infallible guides for the conduct of the next.

Lieutenant Schwatka, a veteran Arctic explorer, said in an official document that the teachings of experience were often worse than useless in polar work.

And so, though the Washington authorities planned for the safety of Greely according to the best guidance that the past could give them, their plans failed completely.

The first relief ship did, indeed, land some stores--never, as the issue showed, to be reached by Greely--but the second expedition, composed of two ships, the "Proteus" and the "Yantic," accomplished nothing.