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Rh Commercial architecture, hotels, shops, railway stations, financial and office buildings, remain to be considered. In view of the vast expansion of American wealth between 1905 and 1920, commercial architecture was of importance, and the standard was of the highest. During this period, thanks to such men as Warren and Wetmore, York and Sawyer, Trowbridge and Livingston, Bonn Barber, Robert D. Kohn, John Russell Pope, Starrett and Van Vleck, and to many others, hotels became exhibitions of architectural refinement and good taste, however sumptuous; railway stations became imposing and august monuments (witness the magnificent Grand Central by Warren and Wetmore and the Pennsylvania by McKim, Mead and White, both in New York), while an endless number of shop-fronts and office buildings were delicate and scholarly essays in pure design. Individualism, rampant and uncurbed, largely on the part of the many owners, prevented any approach to unity and consistency in street frontages, but taken each by itself the shop-fronts of Fifth Avenue, in New York, for example, formed an epitome of the best (as well as the earlier worst) to be found in the architecture of America.

The conclusion that must be drawn from a survey of architecture in the United States during the 2oth century is that the great regeneration initiated during the eighties of the 19th century went steadily forward until architecture became almost of vital interest to a general public that demanded the best that the profession could give. American architects had an advantage over European in the large demand for their services. Good architecture became the fashion, and this was due largely to three factors: the influence of the American Institute of Architects, the training of the École des Beaux Arts, and the dozen or more great schools of architecture in different parts of the country. Behind this, however, lay the fact that apparently American architects as a whole were drawn from the class that possessed the finest traditions and the soundest standards, and that they were able by sheer force of character and excellence of attainment to impose on the public their own ideals and their own standards of value. The World War was an interlude of non-production, but not, apparently, of non-development, and by 1920 a recovery was being effected, while there was evidently an unfailing supply of younger practitioners to carry on the movement that had already achieved such notable results.

ARCTIC REGIONS (see ).—The discovery of the North Pole by Peary in 1909 put a check on sensational endeavours, and turned exploration of the Arctic regions along more strictly scientific lines.

Greenland.—The exploration of Greenland has been continued, with few exceptions, by Danes who, besides throwing much light on problems in physical geography and Eskimo ethnography, have practically completed the map of the coasts.

The American Crocker Land Expedition.—This expedition was sent in 1913 by the American Geographical Society and other bodies in the United States to search for Crocker Land, which had been reported by Peary in 1906 as lying to the W. of Grant Land.

Beaufort Sea.—Much exploration has been done in and around the Beaufort Sea, although the greater part of that sea is still a blank on our maps.

The ambitious Anglo-American Arctic expedition of 1906–7 achieved relatively little real polar work except a journey from March to May 1907 by E. de K. Leffingwell, E. Mikkelsen, and S. Storkersen from the coast in long. 149° W. across the sea ice to lat. 72° 3' N., long. 149° 44' W. where they got a sounding of no bottom in 620 fathoms. V. Stefansson, who was nominally a member of the expedition, spent his time with the Eskimo in the Mackenzie delta, learning their habits and language in order to equip himself for future explorations. During 1908–12 V. Stefansson and R. M. Anderson were studying the Eskimo in and around Victoria I., where they discovered the so-called blonde Eskimo, who had never previously encountered white men. Stefansson's successful explorations must be attributed largely to his methods. He lived in Eskimo fashion using only Eskimo diet, which enabled him to travel light and avoid the necessity of falling back on a base for supplies. Similar methods have been employed with equal success by Rasmussen and other Danes in Greenland.

In July 1913 Stefansson sailed from Nome with a large expedition, supported by the Canadian Government, for the exploration of the Beaufort Sea and the N.W. shores of Arctic Canada. Capt. R. A. Bartlett was in command of the chief ship, the “Karluk,”