TO CONQUER THE ICE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 210, 10 September 1897, Page 2

TO CONQUER THE ICE.

LIEUTENANT PEARY PREPARES FOR ANOTHER ARCTIC TRIP.

BOUND FOE NORTH POLE

Lieutenant R. E. Peary arrived in Boston on July 15, and was disappointed not to find his ship, the whaler Hope, ready to receive him. The vessel turned up a day or two later and Lieut. Peary started on his perilous journey in the last week of July. In the course of an interview the Lieutenant stated : "The various parties which will accompany me on the trip are ready to begin the journey. 1 will first go to Sydney, Cape Breton, where coal will be taken in. Then I shall steam on across the Gulf of St. Lawrence and through the Straits of Belle Isle, up the Labrador coast to Turnavik Island, and from there to Baffin Land, on Resolution Island. The Wrightington whaling party and outfit will be landed there, and also Russell W. Porter's party. From there we go across to the Greenland coast. Professor Hitchcock's glacier-stodying-party will land somewhere near the southern point of Greenland. Professor Hitchcock and one of his party will spend the winter in Greenland. Further up the coast Professor Shuch and Professor White, who will go in the interest of the National Museum to search for fossils will be landed. Hugh Lee and his young bride will land here and remain until my return from further north. He was married but a week ago, and will spend his honeymoon in Greenland. Robert Stein, of the .geological survey will be left at "Wilcox Head, where he will gather ethnological matter. "Then the real business of my trip will come in. From Wilcox Head I shall go to Cape York, which is in 70 e.g. north latitude. From this point to a point about 79 deg. north latitude are the Esquimaux. They will be ready to take ship with their wives, their effects, etc. That means about 20 people, for I mean to take all young* married men with me. I shall not take those who have children. From this point T shall carry on tinwork J propose to do. This will In the completion of a full map of tho region, and also the reaching of the North Pole. At this point I will have five years' provisions. The ship will carry me from the United States in the summer, land me and return. Then the next year it will come back and try to reach me. It may nosucceed. If it does not, all right; it will return home and try again the next year, when it should succeed. I expect to be able to reach the polt*. It is about 400 miles from this point Mrs Peary and three-year-old daughter will go with me. I. expect w. shall return cither to Boston or New York about September 25.'" In another interview Lieutenant Peary said : — "I shall make a preliminary trip this summer to the neighbourhood ol my old headquarters in Whale Sound to select, from among my friends there the hunters and families to take North with me next year. 1 have the confidence of these people, and I also know I can depend upon them. They will have a year to make a collection of walrus and reindeer meat and skins for clothing, and they will be assembled at a point to be established, when I arrive next year, so as to cause as little delay at thai time as possible. I will then endeavour to push as far north as Sherard Osborne fjord, and there establish my permanent camp, which may be reached each year by a relief ship. "During next summer, and, when possible, later in the season, I will work northward and leave caches or stations at prominent points, and my final station will be at the last point |of land I find. This, of course, has not yet been reached, as when Brainerd and Lockwood reached thenfurthest point north they saw the < land still stretching away toward the north-east. From that station I shall make my dash for the pole, and should I be favoured with good weather and good luck, I may be able to return home in the fall of 1899. But you know how uncertain the conditions are in the North from one season to another, and if I do not find them favourable in 1899, I will have to wait another year, and maybe another. But I shall remain until 1 do get an opportunity, no matter how long it takes." "I don't suppose you will attempt to locate any stations on the ice after you reach the northern limit of land '?" "No. What use would they be ? I believe that the ice even at the pole is constantly moving, just as it moves further south. That is the obstacle in the way of carrying out the popular idea of continuing stations to the very pole itself." "Will you take your own family with you ?" "Mrs Peary will accompany me this year, but will not go with the expedition next year." "I see that on this map you have marked your route as stopping at Resolution Island. What do you put in there for ?" "To leave one of the scientific parties which accompany me this year. I leave one in Labrador and another in South Greenland, and shall pick them up when I return from Whale Sound in September. By the by, I think these yearly trips of the ship that takes my party north, and that will return each year while. I am there, will afford an excellent opportunity for these scientific excursionists, an opportunity not to be neglected by them, and will add much to the interest of the expeditions. *

Lieutenant Peary said he had nr yet settled the ship for this year journey, for it was difficult somt times to find just what you wan* In the spring the Newfoundland ship and the Scotch whalers from Dunde engage in sealing in the ice along th Labrador coast, and, in order to mana paying voyage, they pound thei vessels into the pack in apparentl, the most reckless manner. Then when they get back to St. John's, i they are not too badly shattered, the; go north on whaling voyages. Recently the whaling voyages have no been very successful, and the Dunde. steam whalers go directly back t< Scotland. Lieutenant Peary expect' to be able to secure the vessel fo this year's voyage within a few days