So, as the Yankees say, we traded.
[Illustration: PEARY DISTRIBUTING UTENSILS TO WIVES OF HIS HUNTERS AT ETAH] Steaming in a northwesterly course from Cape York, we passed the "Crimson Cliffs," so named by Sir John Ross, the English explorer, in 1818.

This vivid name was applied to the cliffs by reason of the quantities of "red snow" which can be seen from a ship miles out at sea.
The color is given to the permanent snow by the _Protococcus nivalis_, one of the lowest types of the single, living protoplasmic cell.

The nearly transparent gelatinous masses vary from a quarter inch in diameter to the size of a pin-head, and they draw from the snow and the air the scanty nourishment which they require.

Seen from a distance, the snow looks like blood.

This red banner of the Arctic has greeted me on all my northern journeys.
Sailing by these cliffs, which extend for thirty or forty miles, my thoughts were busy with the work before us.