It is the little oasis amid a wilderness of ice and snow along the west coast of northern Greenland midway between Kane Basin on the north and Melville Bay on the south.

Here, in striking contrast to the surrounding country, is animal and vegetable life in plenty, and in the course of the last hundred years some half dozen arctic expeditions have wintered here.

Here, too, is the home of a little tribe of Eskimos.
[Illustration: SNOWY OWL, CAPE SHERIDAN] [Illustration: BRANT-GOOSE] [Illustration: SABINE'S GULL] [Illustration: RED-THROATED DIVER, MALE AND FEMALE] [Illustration: KING EIDER, DRAKE] This little refuge is about a 3,000 mile sail from New York and about 2,000 miles as the bird flies.

It is about 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle and about half way from that great latitudinal mark to the Pole itself.

Here the great arctic night averages one hundred and ten days in winter, during which time no ray of light falls upon the sight, save that of the moon and the stars, while in summer the sun is visible every moment for an equal number of days.