THE PUBLISHERS FOREWORD The struggle for the North Pole began nearly one hundred years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock, being inaugurated (1527) by that king of many distinctions, Henry VIII of England.
In 1588 John Davis rounded Cape Farewell, the southern end of Greenland, and followed the coast for eight hundred miles to Sanderson Hope.

He discovered the strait which bears his name, and gained for Great Britain what was then the record for the farthest north, 72 deg.

12', a point 1128 miles from the geographical North Pole.

Scores of hardy navigators, British, French, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, and Russian, followed Davis, all seeking to hew across the Pole the much-coveted short route to China and the Indies.

The rivalry was keen and costly in lives, ships, and treasure, but from the time of Henry VIII for three and one-half centuries, or until 1882 (with the exception of 1594-1606, when, through Wm.