Robert Edwin Peary, the brilliant Arctic explorer, was born at Cresson,
Pennsylvania, May 6, 1856. After a course in public schools he entered
Bowdoin college, graduating therefrom in 1877. In 1881 he was appointed
civil engineer to the United States navy. From 1884 to 1885 he acted
as assistant engineer in the surveys for the Nicaraugua ship canal,
and from 1887 to 1888 was engineer in charge of further surveys for
the same project. In this connection he invented the rolling lock-gate
for canals. He inaugurated his career as Arctic explorer in 1886, when
he made his famous reconnaissance of the Greenland inland ice cap, a
thing that none of his predecessors had attempted. In 1891 he undertook
another expedition to the north under the auspices of the Academy of
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He also determined the insularity of
Greenland, for which he received medals from a number of scientific
organizations. Still another voyage was made in 1893, and a year
later he discovered the famous Iron Mountain, which proved to consist
of three meteorites, one of them weighing ninety tons. Some of the
meteorites he brought back with him during a summer trip made in 1896.
In 1898 he again started north in an endeavor to reach the North Pole,
but was not successful. Lieutenant Peary married Josephine Diebitsch
in 1888. He is the author of several books on his work in the arctic
regions and of a great many papers in geological journals and popular
magazines. He once remarked that even Polar ice would melt “by heat of
effort,” meaning that any obstacle can be destroyed by enthusiasm and
persistency.