The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1909. DR. COOK'S EXPOSURE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 700, 28 December 1909, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1909. DR. COOK'S EXPOSURE.

The controversy respecting ;Dr. Cook and the North Pole appears to have turned strongly against the explorer.: Dr. Cook, it must bo confessed, has not appeared to conspicuous advantage. The comments of , the scientists on the little scientific information offered them by the explorer have been the reverse of laudatory. Dr. Cook seems to have gono Badly astray on two subjects, and those of the very greatest moment—temperature and astronomical observations. One of his claims was; that he recorded a temperature of 83 degrees below zero, Centigrade. This translated into Fahrenheit means 117 degrees below zero. A tern- 1 peraturo such as this, or anything approaching it, has never before been experienced by any Polar explorer. Tho absolute minimum given by Dr. Hann, the Austrian meteorologist, which ho found in East Siberia, was 90 :degrees below zero,. Fahrenheit, Dr. Cook has explained that Centigrade was a misprint for. Fahrenheit, and adds that the'temperature he recorded is not'unusual in northorn regions. Peary in the same latitude, and practically - in tho same longitude,. never met i with a temperature lower than 67 degrees Fabrenheit, and' that he, described as quite exceptional. A popular imr pression exists that tho farther north is found the greater cold. This beliof, however, is an erroneous one, and therein lies ono of the mysteries of tho Polar regions. ; Tho greatest cold in tha Northern Hemisphere is found, not at tho Pole, but in NorthEast S lboria—about 200 miles north: easlf,of'the city, of in the Parry Islands,' which lio north of Canada, and witum tho " Arctic Circle. From those points the climate, becomes warmer as the distance diminishes, towards tho Pole. Nordenskjold, who was shut iip ', in the ice on the coast: of Siberia in the winter of 1878-79, held the opinion,' based on the colour of the sky, that (.open water would bo • found in tho i direction,- probably. in tho neighbourhood, of the North Pole. .

A tomporature milder in tho north than in tho- south of tho Arctic rogions is a cireumstanoo at onco-in-explicable and astonishing. Yet, surely Dr. Cook .must have been conversant withj this woll-established scientific fact,' extraordinary and mystifying though it • be: Peary found in the extreme north of Greenland a ; milder climate and more vegetation than he met with farther south. He. was convinced that large ireas of ice-free ocean: exist well i within the Arctic regions. Indeed, I many explorers otbsr than Noh- | lENskjold thought it possible that , an unfrozen sea would be found surrounding tho Pole, itself. Admiral Wrangell, in his book, Siberia' and (he Polar Sea, tolls of having frequently, in. the depth of winter, left lue ooast of Siberia and journeyed by sledgo far to the north. The farther ho went the ico became thinner, until in >uo distance could be seen j the lonely, storm-tossed .waters. He ! has described, in vivid ; terms when fi rst he saw this great Polar sea. i •"Wo.climbod ono of tho loftiest ico hills," he relates: "when we obtained an extensive viow towards the,north, and whonco wo observed a wide, immeasurable ocean spread before our gaze. It .was fearful and magnificent, but, to us, a molanchoiy spec- 1 tade. Fragments of ice of enormous size floated on tho surface of the agitated occan, and woro thrown by tho waves with awful , violence against tho edge of the ice field." Wrahqeh.'s discovery ' was afterwards fully confirmed by Tartarinoff, Anjou, and Hedenstrom. Authorities in science state that only in recent times—recent, in a geological sense—havo tho approaches to the Polo been swathod, more or less, in bands of ,ico and snow. Once upon ,a time that portion -. of the planet possessed a warm climate such as prevailed in tho British Isles during the * Carboniferous I Period. Coral recta assumed form near the Pole; graat forests flourished farthor sout-i.- Coal measures abound. Svbrdrup in 1900-02 v discovered remains of tho coal forests in the very heart of the Arctic regions. At present it is obvious that Dr. Cook's original' narrative-, as supplied to the New York Herald, cannot stand tho searching, yet Bimple, tests of scienco.' . Nor have we yot learned that Dr. Cook has produced his journals which he first declared ho dispatched from Greenland to America. .Unbelievers:, are demanding tho production, not only of his manuscripts, but also of the thcrmomotcrs which recorded tho abnormally low temperatures. Dr. Cook had it cold enough in the north. In another sense he seems to be in for a warm time now.