It is a wise provision of nature that the human consciousness can grasp only such degree of intense feeling as the brain can endure, and the grim guardians of earth's remotest spot will accept no man as guest until he has been tried and tested by the severest ordeal.
[Illustration: MEMBERS OF THE PARTY CHEERING THE STARS AND STRIPES AT THE POLE, APRIL 7, 1909 From Left to Right; Ooqueah, Ootah, Henson, Egingwah and Seegloo] Perhaps it ought not to have been so, but when I knew for a certainty that we had reached the goal, there was not a thing in the world I wanted but sleep.

But after I had a few hours of it, there succeeded a condition of mental exaltation which made further rest impossible.

For more than a score of years that point on the earth's surface had been the object of my every effort.

To its attainment my whole being, physical, mental, and moral, had been dedicated.

Many times my own life and the lives of those with me had been risked.