EXPLORER'S LAWSUIT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22629, 18 January 1937, Page 9

EXPLORER'S LAWSUIT

ARCTIC CLAIM RECALLED DISCOVERY OF THE POLE (Received January 17, 5.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, Jan. 10 Hie Appellate Court to-day ordered Dr. Frederick A. Cook to strike out of his complaint in a suit for 20,000 dollars damages against the Encyclopaedia Britannica a paragraph in which he assorted that he was accused of having obtained money under false pretences through his claim that ho had discovered the North Pole. Tho Court held that in a matter involving scientific achievement it may be stated that a claim by a discoverer has been either disputed or rejected, without imputing fraud.

fho civilised world was startled on September 1, 1909, by the news that Dr. Cook had arrived in Northern Europe from the Arctic regions and was asserting that on April 21 of that year ho had readied the North Pole. Very little had been heard of his expedition or even of his plans and preparations. When he arrived at Copenhagen, lie was received with great honours and later lie lectured extensively in the United States, and elsewhere. He also published a book, "My Attainment of the Pole." Meanwhile, murmurs of doubt were being heard and the Copenhagen scientists invited Dr. Cook to submit to them his detailed records of his dash to the Pole, on which ho was accompanied only by Eskimos. After a careful examination of the documents, which he supplied, they considered the data to be "insufficient." Controversy raged for years, Dr. Cook maintaining his claim strenuously and being backed by Amundsen, who declared Dr. Cook's evidence to be just as sound as that of Commander Peary, who had returned from the North about a week later than Dr. Cook with a similar claim. Tho Encyclopaedia Britannica in its chapter on the Arctic regions says: "Dr. F. A. Cook spent two years in the Arctic regions, 1907-09, and claimed to have reached tho Pole by sledging alone with two Eskimos a year before IVary. He submitted tho evidence for this'achievement to the University of Copenhagen which failed to find it. satisfactory and Dr. Cook did not appear to challenge this decision."